


you had your soul with you

by annelesbonny



Category: The Magicians (TV), The Magicians - Lev Grossman
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Depression, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, I retcon the shit out of eps 11 12 & 13 because fuck that, Idiots in Love, Library related shenanigans, M/M, Margo and Quentin are best friends fight me sera, Minor Character Death, References to Drugs, References to Past Suicide Attempt, References to self-harm, Sharing a Bed, Sort Of, Suicidal Ideation, With more to come, after 4x10, let's do better than canon kids, references to past hospitalization, references to past overdose
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-26
Updated: 2019-08-27
Packaged: 2020-03-17 16:09:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 33,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18968683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/annelesbonny/pseuds/annelesbonny
Summary: Margo is back and Quentin is dealing. And by dealing, he is absolutely not dealing with anything. But Eliot needs them, and so does Julia. Or, a Librarian wants to become a god, a neo-fascist organization wants to stomp out a rebellion, and a couple of high-strung millennials just want to take a fucking nap.(In this house, we accept the canon we think we deserve, which is better than whatever the fuck those last three episodes of season 4 were.)





	1. prologue.

you had your soul with you

 

> _ “Something out of memory walks toward us, _
> 
> _ something that refutes _
> 
> _ the dictionary, that won’t roost _
> 
> _ in the field guide. Something that once flew _
> 
> _ and now must trudge. Call it grief, _
> 
> _ trailing its wings like a shabby overcoat, _
> 
> _ like a burnt flag. Call it ghost. _
> 
> _ Call it aftermath. Call it remorse _
> 
> _ for its ability to bite and bite _
> 
> _ Again.” _
> 
> — Don McKay, from “Angel of Extinction,”

* * *

 

**prologue.**

 

People sometimes forget that Margo is Quentin’s friend, too. So when she comes barreling into the apartment, brandishing two wicked looking axes, and heads straight for him, using the blunt end of one of the aforementioned axes to push him back down into the couch before throwing herself down next to him and kicking her legs up into his lap, Quentin’s the only one who takes it in stride. To be fair though, she could have cartwheeled in completely naked and proclaiming her lifelong love for Julia and been hard-pressed to get a reaction out of him. While the others try to catch up, Quentin smiles a little at Margo and pats her ankle. 

 

“Hi. I wasn’t sure you got my bunny.”

 

She scoffs, and props her axes against the ottoman. “All two dozen of them, once we figured out how to get the stupid things talking again. Shit’s weird in Fillory right now, too.” Her mouth tightens, trembles almost imperceptibly but Quentin notices. He narrows his eyes, tries to force himself to see beyond the fog that’s been gathering in his head until he starts to see her clearly.  

 

There’s sand in her hair. Her clothes stick to her in places, dried with sweat. She could, uh, go for a shower, but Quentin, who likes his balls where they are, isn’t going to tell her that, thank you very much. But more than anything, she looks….sad.

 

“Hey, uh— are you okay?” he asks her softly. 

 

He’s not sure what he’s expecting: a brush off, maybe an admittance cloaked in biting sarcasm, anything other than what he gets. Margo’s eyes widening, alarmingly over-bright, as close to tears as he’d ever seen him. 

 

“Oh God. Shit. I’m sorry, Margo, I—”

 

Distantly, he hears Julia ushering everyone out of the room. 

 

“Q. Shut up.” Margo says, her voice hollow and strange. She sits up, pulling her legs out of his lap, curling in on herself in a way that he’s intimately familiar with. 

 

He waits. 

 

Margo squeezes her eyes shut, then opens them again, the line of her jaw tight and sharp. “I made Fen overthrow me. I’m banished from Fillory for— well, forever apparently .” 

 

“Well.” Quentin says. “Shit.”

 

Margo laughs wetly. “Yeah. And I all got were these lousy brands.” She shakes back her sleeves and Quentin blanches at the red raw burns on her wrists. 

 

“What the fuck, Margo?” He jumps to his feet. “Have you even cleaned those? Because I’ve already chopped off one friend’s hands and I’m not fucking doing it again!”

 

“Jesus fuck, Coldwater. Take it down a notch.” But she doesn’t complain when he sits back down next to her with a bottle of clear alcohol and some bandages. 

 

He feels her eyes burning into him as he works and hunches over more, wishing desperately that Brian hadn’t cut off all his emotional support hair. He missed her, this last month. Her support, her sharp-eyed clarity, her ability to give back what she’d been given ten-fold, but this, this he hadn’t missed. Fairy eye or no fairy eye, she has this way of seeing right through him. 

 

“Q, what’s the last thing you ate?” Not  _ when’s  _ the last time you ate. No, that would be too easy to fake; she wants him to think about it, to catch him in whatever lie he’ll conjure up to tell her. Goddammit, Margo. 

 

“I think a quesadilla,” he says, knowing damn well that thing had ended up on the floor and he’d ended up eating dry cereal out of the box. 

 

“Uh huh.” She doesn’t sound impressed, but she lets him finish bandaging her wrists. As soon as he releases her, she stands, pulling him up with her. 

 

“C’mon. I’m starving so we’re gonna eat and then I’m going to tell you all about my new children, Sorrow and Sorrow.” She gestures proudly at the axes. 

 

His mouth quirks. “Sorrow and Sorrow?”

 

She ties back her hair on the way into the kitchen, throwing him a look over her shoulder that brings him back to simpler, Eliot-included times. 

 

“Yeah, I can’t tell those fuckers apart for shit.”

  
  
  
  


Quentin doesn’t want to be here. His feelings regarding Brakebills South, and Alice, are complicated and ugly at the best of times. This is emphatically  _ not  _ the best of times. The arctic air bites at his exposed skin and he buttons his coat to his chin. 

 

Alice leads the way. She tries to talk to him, but he just— can’t. Not right now. He feels as raw as the brands on Margo’s arms; he desperately wants to scratch at the scab of himself until he starts to bleed, warm and bright and alive. 

 

He doesn’t do that. Instead, he agrees to Alice’s plan, the swapping of consciousnesses across times or whatever. It doesn’t matter. Once they have the incorporate bond spell, they’re one step closer to getting Eliot back. That’s what matters. 

 

Of course he has to contend with a horny, in love Alice, and an irate Mayakovsky, and his _ fucking discipline _ before he gets the spell. 

 

Then, Alice again. He really didn’t think she still had enough of his heart to break, but apparently, some things don’t change. 

 

_ “You are the best thing that ever happened to me.” _

 

Oh fuck. He isn’t, he really, really isn’t, but he doesn’t know how to tell her that and he can’t, anyways. He can’t tell her about all the ways they are going to hurt each other, all the ways they’re going to grow because of it, in spite of it. No, he gets to stand here and watch her cry and hurt, breaking her heart again because that’s what he’s good for. Sometimes he thinks that’s all he’s good for. 

 

_ “Fifty years. Who gets proof of concept like that?” _

 

Thinking about Eliot when Alice is standing in front of him on the verge of tears makes him feel like all kinds of shit. 

 

More and more, he just feels— tired. 

  
  
  
  


The monster took Julia. That happened. Okay. Quentin’s mind does the necessary calculations to adjust for this scenario and comes up predictably short. Because there is no version of this story where they succeed without Julia. Where Q doesn’t die without Julia. 

 

Fuck. He can’t do this. Eliot. Julia. Whatever the fuck just happened with Alice. He can still feel her mouth on hers, hates himself for hating the taste of her. Not right now. He can’t deal with this right now. 

 

Penny is freaking out at him, Alice is hovering anxiously, Kady looks pissed, and Quentin— can’t do this. He grabs the nearest pack of cigarettes and walks out onto the balcony. Penny shouts something at his back, and then Kady is shouting back at him, and yeah. 

 

Quentin slides the glass door shut behind him. 

 

By the time he lights his first cigarette, the door slides open again. Margo. He inhales deeply, feels the burn of nicotine and smoke down in his chest. 

 

“Want one?” he asks. 

 

She plucks the one from his hand by lieu of an answer. 

 

“We’ll get her back,” she says after a moment, voice raspy with smoke and maybe something else, too. 

 

“Okay.”

 

“Eliot too.”

 

“Okay.”

 

“You know, we’re going to have to talk about whatever the fuck is going on with you, you know that right?”

 

“Okay.”

 

Margo slams her hand down against the metal balcony, startling them both. 

 

“I am not good at this, Quentin. I don’t know how to  _ help  _ or  _ fix  _ or do any of that shit you and Eliot are so goddamn good at, but I do know my friends. I know you, Coldwater, and you’re fucked up a creek right now. So just, don’t play with me. Not about this. Because I am  _ not  _ losing you too.”

 

Quentin’s eyes burn. He doesn’t know what to do with her ferocity, her affection, her unflinching desire to protect him from all the things no one else has ever managed to protect him from. 

 

“Okay,” he says, in lieu of anything else. “Okay.”

  
  
  
  


Margo might be in love with Josh. Quentin thinks that makes sense, kind of. Honestly, he just wants her to be happy. And he likes Josh. So that’s a good thing. But Josh is also a fish right now, which is not so much of a good thing. So he gives her the number of the Magician veterinarian and hopes for the best. 

 

Which leaves him alone with Alice. It doesn’t hurt to look at her anymore, which is nice. But the way that she’s looking at him….well, that does hurt a little. He thinks about Brakebills South, about coming back to himself and the soft heat of her pressed against him, kissing him. In another life, maybe it would be enough, whatever they could scrap together, the burned-out remnants of a relationship cobbled together in the shadow of thier most recent heartbreaks would be enough. 

 

But Quentin is— tired. 

 

“I want you in my life. Can we just— try to be friends— this time?” His voice shakes a little, but he manages to make eye contact, doesn’t look away from her beautiful, clear blue eyes. 

 

For a second, she’s taken off guard, more vulnerable than he’s seen her in a very long time, but then she blinks rapidly and its gone. 

 

“Yeah. Of course. Yeah.”

 

Quentin doesn’t quite sigh with relief, but it's a close thing. 

  
  
  
  


He sits cross-legged in a dying garden and thinks about what it means to grow up. For so long it had just been him and Julia and Fillory. Dreams and other fairytale bullshit that were supposed to fade with time and….jobs or some other adult things. 

 

“Honestly, fuck Fillory.” For being so fucking disappointing, for taking Alice, for giving him a son and a life and the other half of his soul just take it all away again, for fickle magic and sadistic gods, for— For hurting so goddamn much all the goddamn time. And yet, he still loves it, somehow. The idea of it. What it meant to him, once upon a time. What it still means to Margo and Eliot, what it could maybe, just maybe, mean to him too, given time. And he— almost wants that chance. To fall in love with Fillory again. 

 

The garden blooms. 

  
  
  
  


Margo pops her fairy eye out of her head far too casually for Quentin’s liking, but they’ve run out of time to waste on the details. Julia, Eliot, and their parasitic, tagalong monstrosities are in the Library.  So Margo gently sets her eye in front of Josh, who is still a fish, and shoulders one of the Sorrows, passing the other off to Penny with a recalcitrant sigh. 

 

“Alright, fuckers.” She says with a bravado only Quentin sees through. “Let’s go stick axes in our friends.”

  
  



	2. no kingdom to come; one

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The gang has a terrible plan. Margo gets real. Quentin just really needs a good cry (he doesn't get one, though).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> take a shot every time I use an em dash (please don't though, you'll die)

**part i: no kingdom to come**

* * *

 

_one._

 

Quentin sticks close to Margo’s side, and thinks about how they all might die today. Their entire plan can be summed up as: a) locate god monster possessed friends, b) hit god monster possessed friends with a magical ax, c) perform complicated spell to trap god monsters in magical bottles, and d) fucking hope for the best, apparently.

 

It’s a terrible plan. It’s the only one they have. So, he thinks about how they all might die today. It doesn’t scare him as much as it should, and _that_ scares him. Because a him that isn’t afraid of dying is, historically, not great for his general health and well-being.

 

Margo hands one of her axes to Penny. “We don’t have time for a swing and a miss, 23.”

 

“I know,” he says tersely, and Quentin feels bad for him, in a distant sort of way.

 

Or rather, he knows that he _should_ be feeling bad for him, but the best that he can do is imagine he’s someone else, someone who still has the energy to feel bad for Penny, even though he took another choice away from Julia, even though this Julia, Q’s Julia, isn’t even his Julia at all.

 

He waits for a spark of anger. At Penny, at himself, even at Julia. Nothing. Then, he waits for the guilt to hit, and it does, but faintly, like an old bruise.

 

It takes him a second to register Margo’s hand slipping into his. He looks around at their little team. Penny, ax in hand and defiant; Alice, determined and focused, spirit bottle clutched to her chest; Margo, her Sorrow on her shoulder, her other hand in his, glancing back once at fish Josh on the counter under the careful watch of her other eye.

 

He wishes Eliot was here. And Julia. Even Kady. Real Josh, too. He wishes for a different apocalypse, one that doesn’t have them fighting things that look like their friends. They’re stronger together, better together, and he just— misses his small, stupid family.

 

He doesn’t notice Penny taking Alice’s hand, then Margo’s arm, but one jarring moment later, they’re in the Library.

 

Quentin used to love libraries. The curated silences, books everywhere, piled on tables and lining shelf after shelf, the warm low light and the sounds of pages turning, people breathing. The library was his sanctuary in high school, then again in undergrad. They were spaces that held no expectations, no demand for social interaction; in fact, you were supposed to be quiet, solemn even, could be alone without anyone wondering why even basic conversations were just too hard sometimes.

 

Now, libraries kill his friends, hoard magic like a goddamn sewer dragon, and dabble in neo-fascist politics.

 

Fuck libraries.

 

“Okay,” Penny says quietly, barely more than a whisper. “Alice and I will find Julia. You two get Eliot.”

 

Margo raises an eyebrow. “So if we run into our friendly neighborhood not-goddess first should we just point her in your direction or— ”

 

“Fuck off, Margo.”

 

She smiles at him, all teeth.

 

“Don’t miss.”

 

Quentin’s anxiety, already pumping at maximum, ratchets up another notch as Penny and Alice disappear around a corner. Even for this Library, the silence around them is oppressive as fuck. They have no idea where the monster is, what he and his sister are after or if they’ve found it already. They barely know what they’re going to do if they actually manage to find Eliot.

 

So, Quentin does what his anxiety thinks is best. He starts talking way too fucking loud.

 

“Hey, uh, Margo, do we even have a plan here?”

 

His voice might as well be a gunshot, the way it shatters the air around them. That’s okay, though because the monster likes Quentin, for some fucked reason. That might be enough to draw him out. It’s the only idea he has right now.

 

Margo turns on him, eyes wide angry scared— she sees through him and clearly does _not_ like his one idea , but it's already too late. Someone’s coming.

 

“Go,” he mouths, gestures at the shadowed stacks behind her. She gives him a pointed look before she goes, expecting him to follow her. He doesn’t.

 

_Come the fuck at me, monster._

 

He walks out into the middle of the corridor and waits.

 

“Quentin.”

 

He forces himself not to close his eyes, to shy away from the abomination the monster makes of his name. His name in Eliot’s mouth used to be something like a prayer, a promise, maybe a plea. Now it just hurts.

 

“You shouldn’t be here.” The monster takes a step towards him, then another. “My sister won’t like it. She’ll be...angry.”

 

Oh god. _Julia._

 

He’s been trying not to think about it, about the other god monster in Julia’s body, taking her control, her autonomy, the safety in her own skin she’s been working so hard to rebuild.  And more selfishly, he’s been trying desperately not to think about what he would do without her. If Eliot is his true north, then Julia’s his gravity, tethering him to earth. Right now, he doesn’t have either of them.

 

“Where is she?” He takes a deep breath, and tries to make his voice work. “Where’s Julia?”

 

The monster takes another step forward. Quentin takes one back. His heart beats loudly in his ears; just a couple more steps and the monster will be between him and Margo. He knows she’ll take the chance when she sees it.

 

“Busy. With Percy 23 and the other one. You shouldn’t have brought them, Quentin.”

 

“You took her. You took Eliot. You just keep— taking from me.” Quentin lets his voice break, musters the energy to glare. “What the fuck do you want from me? When does it end?” He looks up at Eliot’s face, except it isn’t Eliot’s face, into Eliot’s eyes, except they aren’t Eliot’s eyes, and thinks maybe he can make it end here.

 

“I wanted you...to be my friend. I needed a friend.” The monster’s in his space now, trapping him against the end of one of the long rows of bookshelves. “Are you my friend?”

 

Quentin’s body betrays him, swaying towards the familiar, solid warmth of Eliot.

 

“No,” he whispers, his eyes fluttering shut for half a second before he steels himself, opens them again. “I am not your friend. Never have been, never will be. You kidnapped me, dragged me around the fucking world killing people and— and gods, you almost snapped my arm off, then spent months threatened the people I care about. You took Julia. You told me _the love of my life was dead_. That’s not— Christ, that’s not how you treat people in general, let alone your fucking friends!”

 

He’s gone slightly off message, and he’s breathing too fast, his chest is too tight, there’s a vice around his lungs, squeezing and squeezing, but somehow it feels— good, like some of the poison of the last several months is finally leaving his body.

 

For a moment, the monster looks confused, but that quickly morphs into the petulant anger Quentin’s become so familiar with.

 

Then, Eliot’s hands (not Eliot, not Eliot, _not Eliot_ ) are around his throat. Ah, here they are again.

 

“My sister says I am….soft with you. She says that I…care.” The monster’s voice is soft, and Quentin feels each shallow breath against the side of his face. “But if you’re not my friend, I shouldn’t— care.”

 

The hand around his throat tightens. Quentin gasps.

 

“I don’t— care. About you. But you care about _him_ . _Eliot_. You love him. He loves you, too. I can feel it. It— hurts, what he feels for you.” The hand squeezes; black spots dance in front of Quentin’s eyes and he strains to see past them, to focus on Eliot’s face, even though it isn’t Eliot’s face. “I could kill you. I could make him watch.”

 

Quentin forces air into his lungs, struggles against the vice-like grip crushing his windpipe, and says, “Do it. Do it now.”

 

One second, two, and then, a meaty thud. The hands around his neck loosen, then fall away. Quentin slumps, sliding to the floor as his legs lose their fight against gravity. He hears Margo shouting, and forces back the darkness creeping across his vision, opens the spirit bottle with shaking hands, attempts to force his fingers to make the tuts for the incorporate bond.

 

Eliot is on his side, blood soaking his back from the ugly, gaping wound in his shoulder. Quentin swallows his nausea, forces back his tears and tries to remember how to be a fucking Magician. After a moment, he feels Margo’s magic join his and a gold, glittering cloud of something leaks out of Eliot, spirals into the bottle and then, it’s done.

 

“El? Eliot!” Margo presses her hand to the terrible wound. It’s too big, Quentin thinks deliriously, he’s losing too much blood. Still, his hand joins hers, adding pressure while the other one fumbles against the side of Eliot’s neck, desperately searching for a pulse.

 

“Come back to us, you selfish motherfucker! Eliot. Eliot, _please!_ ” Margo is begging, her voice bordering on a wail and Quentin is— Quentin is _broken_ and somewhere else, somewhere outside of his body, watching this nightmare unfold on a small screen, apart because he can’t— because Eliot isn’t— he _isn’t_ —

 

But then.

 

“Please stop shouting in my ear, Bambi, I’m right here.” Eliot sounds terrible, raspy and weak. Quentin’s entire world explodes with color.

 

“Oh, thank fuck. El, stay still; we’re going to get you out of here.”

 

And then, with some bullshit cinematic timing, Penny and Alice skid around the corner.

 

“Shit.” Quentin says, because there’s blood on Penny’s mouth and a very empty spirit bottle in Alice’s hand.

 

“Q?”

 

And oh, _oh_ that’s Eliot’s voice. That’s his _name_ (plea prayer promise) and Eliot’s _voice_ and some tiny, fractured part of his world realigns.

 

“I’m right here, El.” Quentin brushes his fingers through the curls plastered to Eliot’s forehead. “Just, uh, try not to talk, okay? Or move, or—”

 

“Shut _up_.” Blood bubbles at the corner of Eliot’s mouth. “I need to tell you something.”

 

But then, Penny’s hand grips his shoulder and the Library disappears around them.

 

They’re inside the infirmary at Brakebills, and Margo is yelling. Quentin stumbles into the nearest person who sort of looks like they might work there.

 

“Please, you have to help my friend. Please.” His throat burns, like he’s been swallowing glass, and his voice sounds just as wrecked.

 

A nurse forces his way through to Eliot’s prone form, and Margo lets him, falling back a step and grabbing at Quentin’s hand. He latches onto her, feeling dangerously desperate and drowning in it. Someone shouts for Professor Lipson. She’s there in seconds, and then Eliot’s being wheeled away on a gurney. When Q and Margo try to follow, the same nurse stops them, holding up bloodstained (Eliot’s blood, oh god, there’s so much blood).

 

“I’m sorry, but you can’t go in there. There are some chairs over there if you’d like to wait.”

 

Quentin feels Margo tense, her spine straightening into a sharp line as she takes a deep breath. Shit. High King Margo the Destroyer is about to make an appearance and he’s pretty sure the staff at Brakebills is never going to be prepared for that.

 

“Thank you,” Quentin says quickly and a little too loud. “We’ll just be— over there. Waiting and stuff.” He pulls Margo towards the little cluster of chairs. Penny and Alice are already there, having a heated, but quiet argument.

 

Margo glares at Quentin, but she doesn’t stalk back and threaten remove the poor nurse’s kidney through his ass or something equally as graphic and upsetting. For now, she turns her ire on the other two.

 

“What the fuck happened?” she demands, snatching her ax from Penny. “I told you not to fucking miss!”

 

Quentin looks at the axe; its blade is stained a dark red-brown. His stomach turns over.

 

“Margo…”

 

“He didn’t miss,” Alice says quietly. “It didn’t work. Whatever’s inside Julia is much stronger than we anticipated.”

 

“It worked on Eliot,” Quentin can’t help but point out, pulling the spirit bottle from his pocket.

 

Alice holds out her hand and Quentin doesn’t hesitate, almost shoving it into her hands.

 

“We need to get rid of this as soon as possible. We don’t know how long the incorporate bond will hold.”

 

Margo wraps her arms around herself, glances back at the door Eliot disappeared through. “Yeah, well, there’s a lot of shit we don’t know right now.”

 

Alice opens her mouth like she’s about to say something, but is interrupted by the loud, insistent buzzing of her phone. She pulls it out her pocket, frowns at the screen.

 

“It’s Kady,” she says, sounding surprised, but not unhappy.

 

Quentin uses the distraction to collapse into one of the chairs. It takes him a couple of seconds to notice how badly his body hurts. Just like, _everywhere_.  He presses gingerly at his throat, wincing.

 

“Wait, what?” Alice’s voice is sharp, edged with almost-panic. “Okay, we’re in the infirmary at Brakebills, just— come meet us, and we’ll figure it out, alright? Don’t be a fucking martyr, Kady.” And she hangs up abruptly, looks around at all of them, eyes wide and very, very blue.

 

“Alice. What happened?”

 

Alice meets Penny’s eyes. “The Poison Room happened.”

 

Things happen for a while. Quentin thinks Alice tried to talk to him at one point, but he doesn’t really remember. Eventually, she stops trying. Quentin stares down at his hands, picks at the dried blood with his fingernails. Margo sits down next to him. He looks up at her and notices for the first time that Alice and Penny are gone. Also, the sun has set. Huh.

 

“Wanna talk about it?” she asks.

 

Quentin makes a soft, unbelieving noise. “Do _you?_ ”

 

“Fuck no. But I— I think maybe we should. Because I’m worried about you, Q. And honestly? I’m a little worried about me, too.”

 

He frowns, sneaks another glance at her. “Why?”

 

“Because I don’t know what I’m going to do if he isn’t okay.”

 

And that— well, that hits him hard, hard enough to knock the breath out of him.

 

“Me neither.” The admission sits heavy on his tongue.

 

Margo bumps her shoulder against his. “Love of your life, huh?” she says, and he’d think she was teasing except for the roughness in her voice, the underlying question, maybe even betrayal, that she’s trying to hide.

 

Quentin squeezes his eyes shut. “Can we— not. Talk about that yet. Please.”

 

She’s quiet for a long moment. “I didn’t have a lot of friends growing up. Not real ones, anyways. I’m not— good at caring about other people. Because being lonely is familiar, you know? It hurts predictably. But loving someone, letting them love you? That’s the kind of shit that gets fucked up fast. Eliot though, he _chose_ me. Like the day we met he just decided that we were going to be friends, and from then on, he was just...there. With a cigarette and a smile. And I— I guess I just assumed he always would be.”

 

She looks at him, her chin raised and almost defiant, but her mouth trembles and her dark eyes are over-bright. This is Margo, being vulnerable, being brave.

 

He finds it hard to speak. After several false starts, he manages to say, “So, uh, remember how Eliot and I had that quest with the— um, with the key?”

 

“The one where I reprised my role of Gravedigger #1?” She asks tersely. “Yeah, Q, I fucking remember.”

 

Just say it. He just needs to say it. “Eliot died. Uh, before me, I mean. And I— I buried him, Margo. I dug his _grave._ And I— I can’t do this again.” His chest hurts, and his breathing quickens, tearing through his already tender throat. “I can’t— I won’t be able to— fuck, fuck, _fuck.”_

 

Oh, it hurts. How does it still hurt so goddamn much? He closes his eyes, wraps his arms around himself and tries to remember how to breathe.

 

“Oh shit. Okay, Q, I need you to listen to me, alright? Because I’m going to need you to snap the fuck out of it.”

 

There are hands on his face, a forehead knocking lightly against his own, and then Margo’s voice, soft and commanding and the only thing left to cling to.

 

“You— fuck, Quentin, you are so fucking strong, okay? And I don’t know what kind of shit that thing that’s been wearing Eliot like a skin suit put you through, but I doubt it was a fucking picnic; you’ve got trauma coming out of your ass, and so do I, and so will Eliot when he wakes up. _When_ , Q. Not if. You and I aren’t allowing that, not fucking this time, got it?”

 

Quentin opens his eyes. He forces air into his lungs, and out again. Breathing. He remembers how. He’s re-taught himself enough times by now.

 

“I’m sorry,” he says softly.

 

Margo rolls her eyes, but flashes him a genuine, albeit tired, one-dimpled smile. “Don’t mention it. We need each other, dipshit. Seriously though, this is a two-way emotional support street, and you can bet your cute ass I will be losing my shit at some point. So consider this your warning, Coldwater.”

 

“You think my ass is cute?” He can’t help himself.

 

“I wouldn’t have tapped it if I hadn’t, sweetheart.”

 

“Oh my God, _Margo_.”

 

She cackles and Quentin can feel his face burning, but the pressure in his chest has eased somewhat and his lungs work like lungs are supposed to again.

 

“Oh good, you’re both still here.”

 

Margo shoots to her feet, and Quentin follows two seconds slower and stumbling. Professor Lipson is walking towards them, her face calm and unreadable. Quentin wonders how the fuck some people do that.

 

“Eliot,” Margo breathes. “Is he—.”

 

“Mr. Waugh is currently sleeping. He’s undergone some intense healing magic, but with rest, he’ll be fine.”

 

“Can we—.” Quentin’s voice cracks; he can feel the splinters in his throat. “Can we see him?”

 

Lipson eyes him for a moment, then nods. “He’ll be out for at least a couple more hours, but I have no doubt that if I told you to come back later, I’d turn around and find both of you at his bedside anyways.”

 

Margo shrugs like this is something Lipson really should expect by now.

 

She sighs, shakes her head, and motions for them to follow her.

 

“C’mon, Q, let’s go draw a mustache on Sleeping Beauty.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so apparently writing from Quentin's pov is both deeply cathartic and deeply upsetting, hence the longer time between chapters. wowzer that boy makes me feel shit. tags will be added as we move forward (mostly for things related to Q's depression/assorted traumas) so keep an eye out for those if you're worried. 
> 
> finally, this story is much less planned out than my last one. there's an outline and I know where I want to end up, but the middle is a bit of a mess so any comments are pretty much going to be my life blood that I use to counteract the fuckton of anxiety that comes along with pretty much everything I do. 
> 
> anywho, thanks for reading!


	3. no kingdom to come; two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Margo asks for a favor, Eliot wakes up, and past events finally start to catch up to Quentin in a not fun way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Important: I will be adding a couple of tags related to self-harm and a past suicide attempt. Quentin's in a fucked up mind space right now, but I promise it will get better.

**part i: no kingdom to come**

* * *

_ two _ . 

There’s a scar on his inner left forearm that Quentin tells people he got from reaching through a broken window. It was a deep cut that healed nicely, leaving only a thin, raised line behind, barely noticeable unless he rolls his sleeves up to his elbows.

He didn’t learn until afterwards that he should have cut vertically, not horizontally. 

Right now, he rubs at the scar as he sits, hunched over in the uncomfortable plastic chair, and stares at Eliot’s too pale face, flyaway curls dark against the stark white pillow. There’s more stubble on his jaw than Quentin’s used to, and he can imagine all too clearly Eliot’s reaction to his current, unkempt appearance. It’s almost enough to make him smile.

Then, another thought invades his brain, one that tips him over into completely inappropriate, slightly hysterical laughter, and he claps his hand over his mouth to keep it from escaping. 

Margo gives him a sharp look from her post on Eliot’s other side. “Do I even want to know what’s got you making that face?”

“Sorry, just— Sorry, but can you imagine if— if the monster had, like, made Eliot grow a beard?”

Margo stares at him for a moment, long enough for Quentin to think about looking for cover when the corner of her mouth twitches, and then they’re both laughing, harder than Quentin can remember laughing in a very, very long time. 

“I cannot believe you made me picture that!” She gasps, wiping at her streaming eyes. “What the fuck, Quentin? Graphic t-shirts are one fucking thing, but a  _ beard?  _ I don’t think any of us would have survived the trauma.”

“I refuse to feel sorry for you when I had to live it. Like, he turned forty and immediately just lost his mind. He said it made him look ‘distinguished’. But Margo, it didn’t; it made him look like a serial killer.”

It had taken Quentin weeks to convince him to shave it, and even then, he’d had to bring in the big guns: Teddy had been even less impressed than Quentin and much more prone to speaking his mind. 

Quentin realizes that Margo is staring at him, an unfamiliar look on her face. Something heavy settles between them, in place of laughter. Quentin clears his throat, which  _ still  _ fucking hurts, and looks down at his hands. 

“You really love him, don’t you.” She doesn’t phrase it like a question, and she doesn’t need to.

Quentin nods.

“Does he know?” Her voice sounds strange, a little strangled, higher than usual.

Quentin nods again, hears Margo’s sharp inhale. He rubs at his scar. 

“But you guys weren’t….”

“I asked him. If he wanted to— try, I guess. Us. He said no.” Quentin doesn’t want to talk about this, doesn’t want to think about anything other than Eliot, safe and breathing and close enough to touch. He really, really doesn’t want to think about how he can’t touch him like he wants to, not anymore. Because Eliot— Eliot said he wouldn’t— 

“He said  _ what. _ ” Margo’s voice is ice cold, hard enough that Quentin is startled into looking up at her, but she isn’t looking at him. She’s glaring at Eliot, who sleeps on, unperturbed. “Oh, you better wake the fuck up soon, El, because I am going to _ kill you. _ ”

“That seems counterproductive, Margo.” Quentin’s lost the plot entirely at this point. 

“Eliot’s a fucking idiot, Q. You do know that, right?” The glare she turns on him is softer, somehow. More frustrated than angry.  “An emotionally repressed, selfish, wouldn’t know happiness if it punched him in the goddamn mouth kind of moron.”

Quentin shrugs, feels an emptiness spreading to his bones, making him hollow. “It doesn’t matter right now. He just— needs to wake up.”

“Look, I’m probably the last person on a very long list of more qualified people to be telling you this, but.” She stops abruptly, swallows, takes a deep breath like she’s preparing for something. “It matters, Q. It hurt you, so it matters.”

“Okay,” he says, mostly because he’s too tired to fight with her.

She isn’t happy with that, but she also doesn’t push. He’s known her long enough to know they’ll be coming back to this conversation at some point. Margo’s friendship is like the tides, pushing and pulling back in turns with devastating, inescapable consistency. Silence drags, stretches between them, and Quentin keeps his eyes on Eliot, the soft rise and fall of his chest, the dark, pinprick shadows his eyelashes cast across the tops of his cheekbones. 

There’s a knock on the door, and then Alice enters. Her eyes widen when they land on Eliot, then flicker from Quentin to Margo, and back to Quentin. 

“How is he?” she asks quietly, stepping into the room, closer to Quentin, who finds himself curling towards Eliot’s bed, unable to look at her. 

It isn’t fair, not entirely. She’s been helping them, trying to right wrongs and all that, which Quentin gets, knows how much that can hurt, how hard it can get from his own varied experience with fucking up on an almost cosmic scale. But the truth is, it hurts to look at her, even now, or maybe especially now after whatever the fuck happened at Brakebills South. He does want her in his life, he really does, but the thing about truth is that multiple versions of it exist at the same time. So, while its true Quentin wants Alice in his life, it’s also true that he doesn’t really want to be near her right now. 

“Alive.” Margo stands, moves around the bed to stand next to Quentin’s chair, facing Alice so he doesn’t have to. 

“Good, um, that’s really good,” Alice says,  relief obvious in her voice. “Look, I hate to say this, but we really need to figure out our next step and—”

“We know.” Margo cuts her off. “Just— give us a minute, okay?”

Quentin assumes that Alice nods because the next thing he hears is the quick, staccato tap of her heels as she leaves the room. 

Margo sighs. She sits on the edge of the bed close to Eliot’s head, her leg bumping against Quentin’s knees. 

“I’m going to go out there in a minute,” she says, and Quentin feels compelled to look at her. 

Margo’s jaw is set in a sharp, determined line and he can practically see the cogs in her brain whirring, spitting out scenarios that don’t end with all or most of them fucked dry, the world ending, or some combination of the two. 

Quentin rubs at his face, tries to force himself to focus, to pull his shit together so he can be something other than useless. A warm hand cups his cheek, Margo pulling his attention back to her. 

“Hey, it’s going to be okay,” she says quietly. “But I need you to do something for me.”

“Yeah. Yeah, of course, Margo.” He goes to stand up, but she presses him back.

“Stay here, Q. Just in case. I don’t want him to wake up alone.”

Quentin blinks. “I can go. You should stay with him. It’s fine, I can—.”

“No.” 

He startles at the steel in her voice, sharp and final, very High King of her. He wants to bristle, to snap that she isn’t king of anything at the moment, least of all of him, but when he glares up at her, ready to argue, the words die on his tongue. Because Margo— Margo looks  _ afraid _ . But she isn’t looking at Eliot, and nothing with monster’s sister or the Library’s bullshit has ever put this particular expression on her face, and she— well, she’s staring at him. 

“I’m okay, Margo. Really.” he says, a little bewildered. 

She closes her eyes. “The fact that you keep saying that scares the shit out of me, Q.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Just— stay here, okay? Please. Stay with Eliot. I need to know where you— where both of you are right now, okay? We’re on that emotional support two-way street, remember.” Her armor is cracked somehow, vulnerability seeping through like rain water, but he’s too tired, and his brain is too broken to put together all she isn’t saying. 

He trusts her, though. He trusts her with Julia. He doesn’t know when that happened or how, but he does. Perhaps he should fight her on this, demand to be a part of whatever plan she’s going to concoct with Alice, Kady and Penny as well, but then Eliot sighs in his sleep and, every other thought in his head flees as he grabs Eliot’s hand, laces their fingers together and  _ prays. _

“Look after him for me.”

A feather-light kiss brushes against the top of his head and then Margo’s gone, and Quentin is alone with Eliot for the first time in almost six months. 

Well, sort of. Because Eliot is unconscious and a not insubstantial part of Quentin is convinced that when those eyes open, they won’t be Eliot’s eyes and the nightmare will go on and on and on. 

His body thrums with nervous energy, his fingers tap an unsteady rhythm against his leg until he can’t stand it. He gets up. Paces. Rubs at the scar on his arm, and the bruises ringing his throat.  

He doesn’t know what to do with his hands. 

He finds his way to the tiny sink in the corner of the room, lets his head hang down and tries to breathe like he’s supposed to. In. Out. Steady.

In. Out. Steady. 

In— 

“Q?”

— Out.

Quentin turns around, and sees big hazel eyes framed with thick, dark lashes, set in a face more familiar to him than his own. Eliot. 

“Hey,” he whispers, and somehow forces his body to move, stumbles back towards the bed. “You’re awake. Um, Margo— she’ll be back soon and, uh, shit should I call a nurse— how are you feeling?” 

He knows he’s panicking, his hands reaching for Eliot before his brain aborts the action and they fall to his side, clenched and useless. Quentin sits down in the chair. Immediately goes to stand up again. “I should definitely call a nurse.”

“Quentin.” Sharper. Urgent. Eliot’s hand reaching.

His name. Eliot’s mouth. Quentin flinches, then freezes. Flinches again at the look on Eliot’s face. 

“Sorry. I’m— fuck, I’m so sorry, El.”

Quentin takes Eliot’s hand, though he keeps his eyes closed as he does it. He hears Eliot’s stuttering exhale, and then— 

“Can I touch you?” 

Quentin opens his eyes. And sees— Eliot. His face and eyes and hands. Eliot. He nods, watches as Eliot raises his other hand, brings it Quentin’s face until his broad palm cups his cheek, and Quentin— Quentin  _ sighs _ . 

In. 

Out. 

_ Steady. _

“Hey,” Quentin tries again. “How are you feeling?”

“Better now,” Eliot says, eyes burning with something Quentin is too fragile, too afraid to name. 

He looks down, pulling back just enough that Eliot’s hand falls away from his face. 

“Q, what happened? I don’t— remember. The park. We were in the park, and then— I don’t. Remember?”

Eliot’s voice wavers, soft and uncertain, and Quentin hates himself a little bit more. Because it hurts to look at Eliot, but it hurts to look anywhere else either. Because this is Eliot, the monster is gone, there’s nothing left for Quentin to protect himself from. 

( _ Liar liar liar, _ his broken heart chants.)

Quentin forces his eyes up, meets Eliot’s searching, desperate gaze.

“Fuck, El, I don’t even know where to start.”

As it turns out, he doesn’t have to because the next moment the door behind them bangs open, and Lipson strides in. 

“Ah, good. You’re awake,” she says to Eliot, stepping around Quentin like he isn’t there. Which, maybe he shouldn’t be. He makes to stand, move somewhere he won’t be in the way, but Eliot’s fingers tighten around his. 

“Stay,” he says softly, looking at Quentin  _ like that _ again and Quentin, well, he’s never been the strong one. 

“Of course,” he whispers. _ Always, _ he means.

****  
  


In the middle of Lipson’s long list of things Eliot should avoid doing for at least a week, which Quentin definitely should have been writing down, raised voices draw their attention. A moment later, Margo appears, face pale, her eyes huge and dark, fixed on Eliot. Seconds pass, and she remains frozen in the doorway. Just when Quentin thinks maybe one of them should, like, poke her or something, Eliot smiles. 

“Hi, Bambi.”

And Margo’s face just  _ crumples _ , a jagged gasp escaping her mouth before she’s a flurry of movement, stumbling to Eliot’s side and into his arms. Lipson looks a little miffed at the interruption, but seems to think Quentin is competent enough to keep track of whatever the fuck she’s been talking about for the last fifteen minutes so she doesn’t let it stop her for long. He  _ really  _ should be writing this down. 

“Um, yeah, thanks Professor Lipson. I think Eliot’s swimming opportunities will be, uh, fairly limited but I will— make sure he knows. All of that.” 

Quentin stands up quickly, trying to back away from Lipson and give Margo and Eliot a little space at the same time. He must have stood up too fast, however, because the room tilts alarmingly. Quentin’s head spins and he would have fallen if Lipson hadn’t caught his arm. 

He blinks sluggishly, and tries to focus. Someone is talking to him, but they sound funny. Far away, like on the far end of a tunnel. In a thunderstorm. Under a freeway. He tries to respond, but the words won’t come. He tries to take a breath, to try again, but that doesn’t work either. He can’t breathe. His hands claw at his throat, and he stumbles out of Lipson’s grasp, falling into the opposite wall hard, and  slides down to the floor. He still can’t breathe. Why can’t he breathe?

Shouting. His name. Margo. Eliot. 

Everything goes black. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey so if you get choked out/strangled even a little bit pls consult a medical professional! i learned that from google. 
> 
> thank you all so much for your comments and kudos! I'm hoping to pick up the pace in regards to updates now that school is over and I no longer spend my days convincing teenagers that they need to know how to read.


	4. interlude; Kady

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we check in with Kady, Zelda, and the rest of the dream team.

 

**_interlude; Kady_ **

  
  


Kady watches Zelda pace and wring her hands while a frazzled Healing student follows her with a clipboard and tries to get a question in edgewise. 

 

“I understand the impulse, certainly. Infinite knowledge is the ultimate temptation, and Everett has been with the Library for quite a long time so I imagine the desire only compounded—”

 

“It’s fucking Librarian heroin, Zelda.” Kady says brusquely, and fights the impulse to scratch at her inner arm. “Everett is a goddamn junkie, with an entire Fascist institution at his beck and call.”

 

Zelda grimaced. “Fascist, I feel, might a little too—.”

 

“Yeah, well I don’t give a flying fuck how _ you feel _ right now.”

 

God, she doesn’t know how to keep doing this. Trying, or whatever. Giving a shit when, historically, all it gets her is epically fucked over. Her mother. Penny. And now Julia, taken who knows where, her body forced to do God knows what ( _ again _ ), and Kady is just so fucking  _ tired _ . 

 

She stares up at the ceiling and tries not to think about the fucking Poison Room chemo running through her veins, about Zelda’s baleful, martyr stare, about Julia who she has never once managed to protect when it actually mattered. Sometimes, she thinks it would be easier to let the guilt and everyone else’s goddamn expectations eat her alive and just be done with the whole mess. 

 

Alice slips back into the room, bearing two huge ass cups of Starbucks. Honestly, if Kady didn’t have an IV tethering her to this bed, she’d kiss her. Maybe later. 

 

“Hey,” she says softly, hands Kady her steaming Americano with an almost smile. “How are you feeling?”

 

Kady inhales deeply, sips the coffee carefully, and ignores the disapproving look from the nurse checking her vitals. 

 

“Better now.”

 

“Caffeine might not be the—”

 

“Shut up,” Kady and Alice say at the same time and share another one of those almost smiles. 

 

23 makes his entrance next, stalking through the doorway like it personally offends him to be here. Because entitled male rage is exactly what this situation called for. 

It doesn’t  _ not  _ hurt, looking at this Penny-shaped person who is and very much emphatically is not her Penny, and she doesn’t think it’ll ever not hurt, but its faded into a dull, persistent ache. The tension headache of heartbreak, maybe. 

 

“We need a plan,” 23 announces.

 

Kady closes her eyes and counts backwards from ten. 

 

“No fucking shit, genius.”

 

Well, that didn’t work. But you know, Kady is pissed and she’s getting kind of sick of acting like she doesn’t have the right to be. 

 

23’s eyes narrow. Their carefully cultivated detente hangs in the balance. 

 

“Margo!” Alice says suddenly, a little too loudly. She coughs, shifts her hair behind her ear, the lightest pink staining the tops of her cheekbones. “I mean, Margo knows the most about the axes. Maybe she— I think she should be here.”

 

Kady shares a glance with 23; he shrugs. Peace sustained for now. 

 

“Okay, yeah. That makes sense,” she says. “Do you want—”

 

“I’ll get her.” Alice is out of the room before Kady can finish. 

 

“Miss Quinn is wound a little tight right now,” Zelda observes. 

 

Kady doesn’t even bother with the counting bullshit this time. 

 

“How very fucking astute of you.”

  
  
  


Margo enters the room like a storm, lightning in a bottle screaming to be set free. She’s carrying a tight, furious energy in her body that Kady recognizes as being only just held to heel. God, but if she doesn’t get that life. 

 

“Alright, full disclosure,” Margo says, sparing a glance towards 23, a nod for Kady, but more or less returning the majority of her focus to Alice. “I basically stole these fuckers from the last dickwads who were using them so don’t expect a user manual. Believe me, I looked. But, they did always use them in pairs. One in each shoulder, bye-bye body possessing spirit.”

 

“Then why the fuck did we split them up?” 23 asks, voice rising. 

 

Margo turns on him, her eyes flashing. 

 

“How the fuck should I know? Two birds, one stone? The all-encompassing need to save the people we love as quickly as goddamn possible? The lack of some fucking time and space to think one single thing through before the world-ending tomfuckery starts up again?”

 

“None of us could have known that it wouldn’t work,” Alice says quietly, one arm wrapped around herself, fingers steepled against her chin. “The magic in the reservoir was scary powerful. It was like the ultimate magical upper. If that wasn’t enough, then maybe—”

 

“So sorry to interrupt, Alice, but I have a thought, and it, well, it might be useful,” Zelda says, interrupting. 

 

Kady rolls her eyes. Margo appears to notice Zelda for the first time and her eyes narrow. Alice, thoughtful and tense, nods sharply and Zelda continues. 

 

“My thought is this. Your friend Eliot had been, ah, cohabiting with the monster for quite some time. It’s possible that its hold, well, loosened over that period making it easier to draw out.”

 

“Eliot did break through one time. He talked to Quentin.” Alice’s voice sounds slightly strained. 

 

“And when I incepted the monster, he could reach out to me, told me that he’d been poking through some of its memories for a change,” 23 adds thoughtfully. 

 

“But Julia’s just been taken. She might not even know what’s going on yet,” Kady finishes, the sick feeling knotting in the pit of her stomach has nothing to do with the shit that’s being pumped through her veins. 

 

Yeah. Fuck this. 

 

Zelda starts to say something else, something about breaking the hold the monster’s sister has on Julia, ritual exorcisms and the like, but Kady turns her attention to her arm and the IV needle shoved in it. She rips off the medical tape and is just about to start working out the needle when a hand fastens around her wrist. 

 

She glares up at Alice, who rolls her eyes and presses the nurse call button. 

 

“Trust me, you don’t want to just rip that out,” she says.

 

Kady huffs. “I think I might know a tiny bit more about needles and how they feel going in or out than you, princess.” Her voice lacks the necessary bite and Alice just continues to look unimpressed. 

 

A nurse comes into the room. Meanwhile, Margo fixes Zelda with a cold, piercing stare that Kady assumes got her elected as High King of Magic Land in the first place because damn if the temperature didn’t just drop a little. 

 

“Why are you here?” Margo asks, her voice a low dangerous rumble.  “What the fuck do you get out of this?”

 

Just then, there’s a brief, one-sided argument outside the door before Harriet appears. Her lip is split and there’s a tiny bit of blood on her chin. Zelda’s eyes widen, her whole expression shuddering as she reaches for her daughter. 

 

“Darling, what happened?” Her hands flutter over Harriet’s face, cradling, gentle. Kady looks away. “Who did this to you?”

 

Kady doesn’t have to look at Harriet’s hands to know the answer to that question, but Zelda inhales sharply. She makes a small, strange sound, almost like a hum, pats Harriet’s shoulders vaguely, then starts to pace in short, jerky steps. 

 

“Ah.” Margo nods. “Guilt, and an emotional investment. Welcome to the club.”

 

“Why would he— Everett has never—” Zelda is muttering to herself, wringing her hands, and Kady. Almost feels  _ bad  _ for her. Which is such incredible  _ horseshit  _ that she almost wishes she’d choke on it. 

 

“Look, it seems like you might be coming to grips with the whole absolute power corrupts absolutely thing a couple of centuries late. Which, hey, better late than never, but we’ve got some serious shit to figure so make it snappy, or fucking process elsewhere.”

 

“Fuck, Hanson, you are cold.” 23 says, a little awed and not bothering to hide it. 

 

Zelda stops abruptly. “He  _ struck  _ my  _ child _ .”

 

Kady stands, shakes out her arm, and glares. “He has  _ murdered  _ people. And he is not going to stop until we make him stop. For good.”

 

Margo snaps her fingers, pointing vaguely in Kady’s direction. “Two birds, one stone!” she says excitedly. “This Everett wants to be a god, right? We can, like, safely assume he’s into shit of the godly variety, correct?”

 

“I don’t know if ‘into’ is the right word—” Alice stutters slightly.

 

Margo waves her off. “Doesn’t matter. My point is. We can use that. We are literally carrying around a god in a bottle. So we use that fucker as bait, draw Everett out and on our terms.”

 

“Honestly, that’s a lot better than any of our other plans so far,” 23 says with a shrug. “But what about Julia? We don’t even know what the sister wants, let alone—”

 

“Miss Hanson?” A nurse sticks her head into the room, cutting him off.  “Your friend is awake.”

 

Margo makes a small, shocked sound and for just a second, Kady sees the cracks in her armor. It’s kind of nice to know she even has those. 

 

“Okay. Okay,” Margo says, mostly to herself. “You guys got this, right? Because I will—” She looks a little dazed. “I will be back.” And then she’s gone. 

 

Alice speaks first. “We need to go back to the reservoir. It’s the only way we can do the incorporate bond spell, even if we’re using both axes.”

 

Kady shrugs on her jacket, looks at 23, who sets his jaw in a hard line and nods once. 

 

“Godspeed, kids.” She says, summoning a grin. 

 

23 grabs Alice’s hand and travels them away before she can finish rolling her eyes. Kady turns to Zelda, still pacing, and Harriet, tapping away furiously on her phone. 

 

“We need to talk,” she says to Zelda, then reaches out and touches Harriet’s arm, drawing her attention. 

 

“Tell me what happened with Everett,” Kady signs, and Harriet makes a face. 

 

Her hands fly through the story. The confrontation happened more or less accidentally because she hadn’t  _ planned  _ on being caught. 

 

Zelda makes a frustrated noise. “But why were you there in the first place?” Her signs are sharp and precise, eyes narrowed behind her glasses. 

 

Harriet throws her hands up in the air, clearly exasperated, before replying. “I told you if you didn’t handle Everett, I would. You weren’t handling him.” She shrugs. 

 

“I needed  _ time _ . I was being  _ careful _ .” Zelda is practically flinging words at Harriet, her entire body rigid with tension.

 

“We don’t have time.”

 

Kady steps between the two women, her body angled towards Harriet. “She was helping me. We got a little caught up in the Poison Room.”

 

Harriet pales, her eyes flickering between Kady and Zelda. “Are you okay?” Her hands shake a little. 

 

“We are now,” Kady signs in response, while Zelda looks away. “But we found Everett’s book. We know what he wants, what he’s going to do.” She stops, not entirely sure how to explain it all. 

 

“And?” Harriet gestures impatiently.

 

Zelda takes over. 

 

“A god, my dear. He is trying to become a god, and he has been hoarding magic, ah, skimming from the top, as it were, from the ambient supply. He’s been keeping it in Fillory, hidden in a reservoir.”

 

As if summoned, 23 and Alice pop back into existence. They don’t, however, look particularly juiced up on magic heroin.

 

“He’s drained it. Kady, the reservoir’s empty.” Alice catches her breath. “We were too late.”

 

“Fucking spectacular.” Kady closes her eyes. 

  
  
  


Now that Kady and Zelda are de-Poison Roomed, they’re ushered out of the infirmary room and into the lobby where Alice commandeers a corner for them, complete with sticky, uncomfortable waiting room chairs. Kady sits on the floor while 23 finds a wall to slouch against. Alice perches on an arm of one of the chairs. Zelda and Harriet stand. 

 

“Look, I’ve got hedges working on breaking the pipes, but it's gonna take some time,” Kady says.

 

“Which we don’t have.” 23 points out unhelpfully. 

 

“So we work with what we do have,” Alice says thoughtfully. “Ambient.”

 

“There’s not enough,” Zelda says immediately. 

 

Kady straightens suddenly, the line of her spine turning into a live wire. 

 

“Cooperative magic,” she and Alice say at the same time. 

 

23 raises his eyebrows. “That could work. I mean, it would have to be on, like a global scale.”

 

Alice grins, and it brings some of the spark back into her eyes. 

 

“Actually, I was thinking more along the lines of interplanetary.”

Now they’re talking.

 

“Looks like its rabbit season, guys.” Kady gets to her feet, smirking when Alice hides her smile behind her hand. 

 

23 rolls his eyes so hard she’s surprised they don’t just pop out of his head  à la Margo. 

 

Speaking of, the king herself shoves through the double doors leading back to the private rooms, her one eye lighting on their bargain priced war council. Somehow, Margo looks even more keyed up than she had before. Which, Kady thinks as her stomach tightens, probably doesn’t bode well for whatever she’s about to say. 

 

“Josh is de-fished,” she says abruptly, which is. Not quite what Kady was expecting. “My inner eye told me.” She gestures at her novelty eye patch. Honestly, the skull and crossbones aesthetic suits her. “Someone should probably go loop him in.”

 

23 straightens up from his slouch with more drama than is entirely necessary. “I volunteer as tribute,” he says dryly. 

 

“Great,” she says briskly, and starts to turn away. 

 

Kady frowns. “Hold on, Margo. We’ve got— updates.”

 

“Yeah, me fucking too,” She mutters so quietly that Kady almost doesn’t hear her. 

 

Whatever. She presses on.

 

“Everett drained the reservoir. But we,” she glances at Alice. “Have an idea that might work. It’s cooperative magic and it’s going to take pretty much everyone we can get to generate enough power for the incorporate bond.”

 

Margo stops, looks at her. “Cool. Sounds like Sesame Street, but fucking go for it, I guess.”

 

“What the fuck is your problem?” 23 bristles, and for once, Kady is right there with him. 

 

“Just because  _ you  _ got Eliot back, doesn’t mean—” She starts to say. 

 

“I know!” Margo’s voice raises into a shout, suddenly, violently, and it’s enough for Kady to stop, to take a closer look at her. 

 

She looks— terrible. Almost shockingly so, now that Kady’s taken the time to notice. Her eyes are red-raw and damp,her bottom lip is scraped raw from chewing, and her entire body is trembling, just slightly. 

 

“I am  _ trying _ , okay? And I’ll help, you know I’ll fucking help with the spell, with whatever plan you pull out of your asses, but right now, at this fucking moment, I need to be in that room with  _ both  _ of my bedridden best friends, and I am not waiting for your permission.”

 

“Wait, what?” Alice stands up quickly. “What’s wrong with Quentin?”

 

“Jesus fuck, Quinn, I don’t know but it might have something to do with the fact that he’s dangerously dehydrated,” She takes a step towards Alice.  “disturbingly close to malnurished,” Another step, and Kady tenses. “and has been strangled not just once, but apparently twice in the last goddamn month, but why don’t you tell me because I wasn’t fucking here, standing by and watching him do his damnedest  _ to kill himself! _ ”

 

Kady steps between them, close enough that she can feel the tension radiating off of Margo, her anger and frustration and helplessness twisting themselves into weapons that she can aim at anyone other than herself. 

 

Not that Kady would know anything about that. 

 

“Go be with them,” she says, softer than she thought she could and Margo’s eyes widen slightly, suspiciously. “Seriously, your highness,” She smirks a little because, reputation.  “I got this. Well, we do.” She gestures vaguely at Penny, Alice, Harriet, and Zelda. “More or less.”

 

Margo lets out a long, slow breath. “Make it more, and I don’t know, fucking @ me when its time for— whatever this ends up being.”

 

She steps back, starts turning back towards the double doors she came through.

 

“Hey, Margo?” Kady says, just loud enough for her to hear her. “We’re going to take better care of each other, this time.”

 

Margo pauses, turns her head just enough that Kady can see her swallow hard, catch her curt nod. Then, she’s striding away, head high. 

 

Kady takes a deep breath, turns around and says, “Alright, let’s get started.”

 

 

  
  
  


 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aaaaand scene. 
> 
> cool, so I'm playing fast and loose with timing, chronology, and which characters are where at what times because I'm not gonna rewatch 4x13 like ever so I'm going off of memory and a couple of summaries online that didn't make me want to cry. so if you notice things that are off, that's probably why and its probably not going to get better. I will do my utmost to make sure that events make sense in the canon of this fic at the very least.


	5. the light of autumn; one

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Quentin wakes up tired, and a war council convenes in a hospital room.

**part ii: the light of autumn**

* * *

 

 

_one._

 

Quentin wakes up to the sounds of Eliot and Margo yelling at each other. It’s not exactly unfamiliar. For two people so utterly committed to each other, in the time that he’s known them, at least fifty percent of it has been spent them shouting over some insignificant thing or another. Mostly, Quentin finds it amusing, especially when Eliot inevitably throws himself down next to him, head in his lap, complaining loudly that at least _one_ of his best friends loves him unconditionally.

 

Right now, however, Quentin would really like to sleep some more. His head is killing him, and he’s semi aware of his body aching in a way that should probably concern him more, but he’s just so _tired._

 

It’s not meant to be, however, as Margo and Eliot’s voices are only getting louder. Quentin forces his eyes to open, squinting up against the harsh lights in the infirmary. 

 

The infirmary. 

 

Oh shit. Memories crash over him in relentless waves, and it’s all he can do not to drown. Margo. The Library. Eliot.

 

_Eliot._

 

Quentin forces his aching body into a sitting position, his head screaming in protest, a low groan escaping him before he can stop it. 

 

Both Margo and Eliot freeze. As one, they turn to stare at Quentin. 

 

Oh _shit._

 

“Ah, welcome back to the land of the mostly conscious, Mr. Coldwater.”

 

Quentin seriously loves Lipson at this exact moment. 

 

Then, he notices the IV in his arm and the fact that Lipson isn’t nearly done with him yet. 

 

“You’re getting fluids for the severe dehydration, and your friends here have taken the liberty of ordering you some food. As your doctor, I’d ask that you eat as much of it as you can. I think we’d both prefer to keep malnourishment at bay, wouldn’t we?”

 

Quentin no longer loves Lipson. He can feel Margo’s glare, the burning intensity of Eliot’s eyes, and he keeps his own gaze fixed on his lap. 

 

“Quentin.” Lipson’s voice softens. “You need to tell me what happened to your throat.”

 

He startles. The question catches him off guard, and he opens his mouth before closing it again. 

 

“There was a….fight. Sort of,” he says quietly, his vocal chords only able to handle a semi-strong whisper. “Um, like— during a quest, I guess? It happened fast, so I don’t. Really know.”

 

He hopes that’s enough to satisfy her. He needs that to be enough. 

 

“Okay,” she says reluctantly, but she doesn’t argue, marking something down on his chart. “Regardless, I’d like to keep you overnight for observation. _Both_ of you.” She fixes Eliot with a pointed look. 

 

But Eliot….Eliot is somewhere else, his gaze vacant, mouth tight and unhappy while Margo fluctuates between angry and concerned.

 

Lipson sighs. “I’ll give you three a moment then.”

 

She leaves, and the door clicks shut behind her. 

 

“Are you okay?”

 

“What the _fuck_ , Quentin?”

 

Eliot and Margo speak at the same time. Eliot has pushed himself into a somewhat sitting position, an army of pillows behind him, and he stares at Q with an achingly familiar expression, one that transcends timelines, erased and otherwise, the exasperated-fond-terrified-affectionate clusterfuck of an expression that Eliot recycles for both last minute bullshit plans that he doesn’t approve of and days when Quentin’s skipped one too many meals. Margo paces the area between Quentin and Eliot’s beds, and it takes Quentin another moment to tune into what she’s saying. 

 

“ —  don’t care what Wicker was smoking before she got her own god monster, but the not eating, not sleeping bullshit stops _now_.” 

 

She’s glaring at him, but she also has a Party City eye-patch on and this isn’t his first rodeo on the wrong side of Margo’s anger. But the mention of Julia sends a spike of pain through his chest and a jolt of adrenaline strong enough to get him sitting up, and halfway to standing before Margo shoves him back. It takes her a surprisingly small amount of force to get him flat on his back again. He turns his head, summons his own glare. 

 

“You’re not the king of me.”

 

Margo’s eyes widen almost comically, and Eliot sputters into a laugh behind her, and something warm and almost forgotten sparks to life in his chest. She tries to hold onto her anger, but it leaves her in a somewhat bemused exhale. 

 

“You’re exhausting,” she tells him, accusation saturating her voice. “I swear on Ember’s hairy goat ass, I have aged _decades_ between the two of you.” She extends her ire to Eliot, who shrugs and keeps looking at Margo and Quentin with some kind of grateful awe that makes him want to fidget and stare at his hands. 

 

Quentin wants to stay here, in this moment and bask in the sensations, the feeling of Margo’s fierce, exasperated affection, Eliot’s presence and the knowledge that he’s safe and here and the monster isn’t. 

 

But he can’t. 

 

Because Julia is still out there, shit is still fucked, and this right now is, at best, a lull, a temporary respite before they all head back out into the maelstrom.

 

“Margo, I have to help Julia.” 

 

Out of everyone, he knows that she understands, is intimately familiar with the burning panic between his ribs, the constant nausea that seems to have taken up permanent residence in the pit of his stomach, and all this fucking _fear_ , bald-faced and unavoidable, taunting him with the fact that, once again, he’s failed to protect one of the people he loves most in the world.  

 

An expression he can’t identify flickers across Margo’s face. 

 

“Kady and Alice are working on that. I assume 23’s in on it too, but he didn’t have much to say when I was out there before. Oh, and apparently that Librarian bitch and her much cooler daughter are on the team now.”

 

“Sparknotes version, Bambi?” Eliot asks, sounding baffled. “I’m playing catch up.”

 

Quentin tilts his head back until he feels the stretch, stares up at the ceiling. 

 

“The monster’s sister possessed Julia, old white dude who runs the Library wants to, shockingly, become God, oh and magic is rationed.” Margo lists off. “Good news is we have almost-plans for like, two of those. Eliot, what are you look— ? Oh, El.”

 

Margo’s voice wavers, cracking down the middle, and Quentin turns slightly to see— Eliot, ashen-faced and trembling, eyes locked on Quentin. Well, on Quentin’s throat, on the ring of finger-shaped bruises there. 

 

“Did I— .” And Eliot, Eliot sounds wrecked. He swallows, ragged and painful-looking, and tries again. “Q, did I do that?”

 

Quentin forces himself to keep looking at Eliot, to watch those hazel eyes (Eliot’s eyes, _finally_ Eliot’s eyes) fill with tears because he knows if he lets his gaze drop, Eliot’s eyes will stop being _Eliot’s eyes_ and phantom, familiar hands will close around his throat and he can’t do that to either of them. He refuses to walk them back when he’s pretty sure that his ability to function at all is contingent on them being able to forward.

 

“It wasn’t your fault, El,” he says, winces at the way his voice scrapes its way up his throat.

 

Eliot doesn’t respond. He looks down at his hands, flexes them in his lap, fingers curling and straightening. His eyes find the bruises on Quentin’s neck again. 

 

He inhales, deep and shuddering, and then slowly, precisely turns and vomits over the side of the bed. 

 

Quentin and Margo move at the same time, but since Quentin is attached to an IV and only regained consciousness like ten minutes ago, Margo is marginally more successful. She’s by Eliot’s side in an instant, holding his hair back, murmuring quietly in his ear. 

 

Guilt twists between Quentin’s ribs, and even though it’s dumb, he hates himself a little more for causing Eliot pain. He manages to swing his legs over the side of his bed, get his feet on the cool, linoleum floor before the dizziness gets too strong and he has to stop.

 

Fuck, what did he _do_ to himself?

 

A Healing student breezes in with a tray of food, sets it down next to Quentin’s bed, and then notices Eliot, still dry-heaving and freezes, wide-eyed. Margo looks away from him, fixing the young man with an unimpressed glare. 

 

“You want to grab a mop, or are you just into watching?”

 

The student stutters out something, and then flees the room. Margo rolls her eyes. A moment later, Alice walks in. 

 

Eliot groans, falling back against the pillows, wrist flopping over his eyes with Wilde-esque theatrics. 

 

“Oh wonderful, now my humiliation is well and truly complete. Please, do come in, Alice.”

 

Alice tactfully ignores the mess next to his bed, and her smile, as she looks at him, is the small, genuine one that only surfaces for her friends. “Hi, Eliot. You’re looking better.”

 

“Thanks, I feel so much worse. Also, no offense I think, but the last time I saw you, I’m fairly certain we were on different sides of a rather tense stand-off.”

 

Alice grimaces. Margo pats Eliot’s arm. “It’s alright, El. Kitty cat’s been making her amends. We’re cool.”

 

Eliot blinks. “Cool.”

 

Alice clears her throat, then turns helplessly towards Quentin. 

 

“Hey, Q,” she says carefully. “How are you feeling?”

 

Quentin drops his head into his hands. Whatever is on the food tray, he thinks maybe grilled cheese, the smell is turning his stomach. And Alice, Alice is here, looking at him with sad, worried eyes and Eliot isn’t looking at him anymore at all and suddenly, all he wants is to go back to sleep. 

 

But he can’t.

 

“Fucking fantastic, Alice.” He wants to yell, scream, cry, anything to take the darkness, the void that’s been eating away his insides for so fucking long now and put it somewhere else, somewhere outside of himself so it all stops hurting for just one goddamn second. 

 

But he can’t. 

 

So he lifts his head, tries to smile at Alice to take the sting out of his words, and pulls his legs back up onto the bed, settling against the wall with his knees tucked up under his chin. He doesn’t touch the food. 

 

The Healing student comes back with that mop, and Alice squares her shoulders. 

 

“Are you up for visitors?” She asks Eliot, but her eyes flicker to Quentin too. 

 

“The more the merrier.” Eliot waves a hand, his voice dull. 

 

When neither Quentin or Margo protests, Alice nods and moves back towards the door, leaning through and talking to someone out of sight. 

 

Kady enters the room, Penny at her heels. Zelda and Harriet follow. Quentin wraps his arms around his knees, and avoids everyone’s eyes. It seems like everyone starts talking at once. Kady and Penny greet Eliot, Kady with a smirk and a comment about how much she’s liked his fashion choices recently, Penny with a nod and something like gratitude for whatever Eliot told him when he’d incepted the monster. It almost feels— nice, for a moment. Like everything isn’t relentlessly terrible and maybe they’ve actually managed to accomplish something. 

 

But all Quentin can see is the space where Julia should be. It hadn’t felt real before, not exactly. He knew that she was gone, in the way that Eliot was, but he’d been so focused on Eliot for so long, that anything else, anyone else just sort of faded into the background. 

 

Now Eliot is back and Julia isn’t and Quentin is _tired_. 

 

The rest of them are still talking. He hears Kady say something about the hedge witch phone tree she started and Alice explain how her mother has plenty of contacts, other magicians who resent the Library, and she’s been reaching out to them as well. They’re going to use cooperative magic to perform the incorporate bond needed to trap the monster’s sister. 

 

It’s a good plan, Quentin thinks, somewhere outside of his body. He should help with it. Should do— anything, really. 

 

But he can’t.

 

Instead, he curls further into himself, head tucked against his knees and squeezes his eyes shut.

 

“We just need some way to lure Julia to us. Something that she wants,” Kady is saying.

 

Then Quentin hears Eliot’s voice, the slow careful rumble the monster never used. 

 

“I think I might have something to help with that. Bambi, can you grab my coat? It’s— yeah, in the right hand pocket. And don’t think we’re not going to have words about the shit you all let my body run around in because what the fuck.”

 

He sounds more like himself and Quentin smiles a soft, secret smile. It feels nice. 

 

“This is what she wants. All I know is that it has something to do with the Old Gods, or whatever the fuck. She’s got some serious mommy and daddy issues, which relatable, but still. Probably not ideal for the rest of us. Anyways, the scroll is supposed to show you how to get there, the— the home of the gods or whatever.”

 

“That piece of old paper gets you to _Olympus?_ ” Margo sounds more than a little incredulous.

 

“Bambi, I read half a Percy Jackson book in middle school so don’t look at me.”

 

“Wasn’t going to, sweetie.”

 

Different voices chime in and out, but it all starts to fade to white noise. Soon, the only sound he hears is the quiet inhales and exhales of his own breathing. 

 

Then, silence. 

 

* * *

 

“Did Coldwater really fall asleep like that?”

 

“Penny, if you don’t shut the fuck up before he wake him I _will_ get Margo to stab you. She’s got axes now, it wouldn’t be hard.”

 

“Christ, fine, don’t tear your stitches, Waugh.”

 

“I don’t _have_ —”

 

* * *

  


The room is dark the next time Quentin opens his eyes. He blinks; his eyes feel gritty and heavy. His mouth is dry. He reaches out, fumbling in the direction of the bedside table, hoping to find a lamp or ideally, a glass of water, but instead, there’s only more mattress. 

 

“Hey,” Eliot says quietly. “Margo helped me move the beds together earlier. You were— moving around a lot. Restraints were suggested, but I told them we hadn’t discussed bondage yet in a safe, sane, and consensual environment so extra room and someone to keep you from falling onto the floor was probably preferable.”

 

“Oh, um, thanks.” 

 

Quentin turns on his side. There’s a blanket tucked up to his chin, and he has a brief, hazy memory of Margo leaning over him, pulling it up around his shoulders. He doesn’t remember any dreams, but nightmares aren’t unusual for him. He had them nightly for almost a year after Arielle died. 

 

The first time it had happened then, he flailed so much he gave Eliot a black eye. He’d been horrified, and already sick with guilt and grief, he insisted they sleep separate. Eliot had disagreed, but he’d given in because Quentin was breaking down and they both knew it. 

 

So, they tried. Quentin in one bed, Eliot and Teddy in the other. The first night, he woke them all up with his screaming. The second, he fell off the bed and hit his head hard enough to bruise. The third night, Eliot put his foot down and Quentin was too tired to argue so when it came time for bed, he climbed in first, closest to the wall, then Eliot, and finally Teddy, curled up like a puppy against Eliot’s back. When the nightmares started, Eliot simply wrapped his arms and legs around Quentin, holding him steady, holding him safe until it passed, or Quentin woke up and cried quiet, tired tears into Eliot’s chest. Luckily for them, Teddy was a really deep sleeper. 

 

Now, fifty years and several traumas later, Quentin makes out Eliot’s face in the dark, and with his eyes, he traces the sharp lines of his cheekbones and jaw, the soft curves of his mouth, a topography so familiar he never needed a map in the first place. The only noise between them is the sound of their breathing, and Quentin slowly reaches out his hand, knowing that Eliot will meet him halfway, lace their fingers together without a word. 

 

So, this is how he falls back into sleep, Eliot’s hand holding his like a tether, steady and safe. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title of this part comes from "October" by Louise Gluck:
> 
> "This is the light of autumn, not the light of spring.  
> The light of autumn: you will not be spared.
> 
> The songs have changed; the unspeakable  
> has entered them.
> 
> This is the light of autumn, not the light that says  
> I am reborn."
> 
>  
> 
> hit me up with those comments, y'all i'm a thirsty bitch


	6. the light of autumn; two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Quentin gets a referral, shows Eliot where the bathroom is, and smokes some seriously weird shit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here there be some intense shit. It's all references to canonical traumas, but still, check the tags.

**part ii: the light of autumn**

* * *

 

_ two. _

 

The next day, Lipson reluctantly agrees that yes, technically, Eliot _ is  _ strong enough to finish healing at home, and yes, technically, she _ can’t  _ actually keep Quentin longer simply because he’s “skinnier than the last time they ran into each other” and looks a little tired. She objects vehemently to his use of the word “little”, and forces him to consume a granola bar in her presence as revenge. 

 

“Quentin,” she says after a moment. 

 

He swallows the last of his granola bar; it sits heavy in his stomach like wet cement. 

 

“Professor Lipson,” he replies because apparently this is what they’re doing right now. 

 

“I— never thanked you. For what you did last year.” She sounds incredibly uncomfortable, but she refuses to drop her eyes. 

 

“Oh. Um, you’re welcome. But it really wasn’t—”

 

“Please don’t trivialize the attempt I made to take my life, Quentin, nor your role in preventing it,” she says sharply, and yeah. She’s got a point. 

 

“You’re right. I’m sorry.”

 

Lipson sighs, tucks stubborn, fly-away strands of hair behind her ears. 

 

“My point is.” She stops, considers. “Well, just that I know what it feels like. To want to  _ not  _ anymore. Just— before you get to that point, if you haven’t already, there’s someone you should talk to. She’s, well, she’s a Magician. She gets it.”

 

She holds out a business card, and Quentin takes it automatically. 

 

“Uh, thanks. I think,” he says, inching towards the door after Eliot and Margo. “But I’m not. I mean,  _ right now _ , I’m not going to— hurt myself, or whatever.”

 

“Oh, Quentin, you already are. You know that.” Her voice, gentle and sad and knowing is too much and he breaks eye contact, staring at the floor and wishing, not for the first time, that fucking Brian hadn’t cut his goddamn hair. 

 

“Just. Think about it, okay?” Her sincerity is too bright for him.

 

He nods, shoves the card into his back pocket, and flees. 

  
  


It’s strange, coming back to the apartment. There’s a mess of books on the coffee table in the living room, half-empty cereal bowls stacked in the sink, and a soft sweater that Q recognizes as Julia’s slung over the banister. 

 

His eyes sting fiercely. A hand cups his elbow, familiar and not, and Quentin flinches away before he can stop himself. 

 

“Shit, no, El, I’m sorry—”

 

But the damage is done. Eliot backs away from him, eyes tight and unhappy even as he tries to smile, and Quentin just. Feels like all kinds of shit. 

 

“It’s fine, Q. I’ll just be—” he waves in the general direction of the kitchen. “ — over there.”

 

“Fuck,” Quentin says softly, with feeling.

 

Margo steps around him, moving into his line of sight before reaching out, tipping his face towards her. 

 

“Both of you need time. Tits up, Coldwater.” She quirks an eyebrow at him, and follows Eliot, snatching a bottle of Jack Daniels out of his hand without missing a beat.

 

Quentin wanders after her because he doesn’t know what else to do. He slips onto one of the bar stools shoved under the island and splits his attention between whatever Kady, Alice, Zelda, and Penny are doing in the living room and Margo and Eliot bickering quietly in the kitchen. 

 

“I’m not fucking leaving you, El. I just got you back.”

 

“I know, Bambi, and I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important. But I can’t— I  _ need _ — ”

 

“Fuck. Okay, fine, Christ. I’ll get 23 to give me a ride, and I’ll be  _ right back, _ got it?”

 

“Yeah. Thank you.”

 

“Shut up. I love you.”

 

Quentin watches Margo walk up to Penny, mention something about Eliot and the Cottage. Penny rolls his eyes, but holds out his hand. Margo takes it, and they both disappear. 

 

“What was that about?” Quentin asks Eliot, who sighs and moves slowly around the island until he finds his own seat. 

 

“I asked Bambi to get me some clothes from my old room.”

 

Quentin’s mouth twitches. “I’m sure I have a graphic t-shirt around here somewhere that you could try and squeeze into.”

 

“Too fucking soon, Coldwater.” But Eliot’s glare lacks heat, and something close to a smile lurks on his face. 

 

This was good. Safe. Like it could be any other day, Eliot across from him, their friends bickering in the background. He wishes he didn’t know better. 

 

It doesn’t take long for Penny and Margo to return, the latter with a small duffel bag clutched in one hand. Eliot stands quickly, and Quentin’s close enough to catch his subtle wince, the ripple of pain before his iron control clamps down. 

 

“Thank fuck.” Eliot says, snatching at the bag. 

 

“Yeah, yeah, Queer Eye. Go make yourself pretty for the end of the world.” Margo rolls her eyes, but the look on her face is heartbreakingly fond. 

 

“Oh,  _ always, _ Bambi.”

 

Eliot turns, heads towards the hallway, then stops mid-step. “Uh, so I don’t actually know where the bathroom is?”

 

Quentin trips off his stool. “I can show you.”

 

Eliot gives him a small, genuine smile and  _ oh, _ he’s missed that. He’s missed Eliot so fucking much. Happiness, real honest-to-fucking-god happiness blooms in his chest.

 

Then, Eliot steps aside to let Quentin lead the way. Which means he’d be in front of Eliot. Which means Eliot would be behind him, where Quentin can’t see him. Which means he could be anyone, he could be not Eliot, he could be, oh God he could be— 

 

“Q?” Eliot’s voice. Because Eliot is standing right next to him, and the monster is gone. This is Eliot. Just Eliot. 

 

“Sorry, um, actually, do you mind going first?” He feels his face burning, the quiet humiliation he can’t quite drive from his voice. “It’s the second door on the right.”

 

An expression Quentin doesn’t recognize flickers on Eliot’s face, but he doesn’t argue, just starts walking down the hall, Quentin at his heels, feeling like a particularly stupid puppy. 

 

Eliot stops when he tells him to, and Quentin pushes open the bathroom door, gestures vaguely at the medicine cabinet and drawers under the sink. 

 

“Uh, anything you need should be in here. Julia usually did the shopping so I’m not exactly sure what there is, but the towels are definitely under the sink.” He manages to keep his voice level, talking about Julia, but this is Eliot.

 

“Yeah. Are you—,” he pauses, swallows. “About Julia. Are you okay?”

 

For some reason, the question makes Quentin laugh. He tips his head back against the door frame, eyes rolled in his head so Eliot stays in his periphery. 

 

“Fuck no, Eliot. I mean, I’m mostly just— not thinking about it? Because if I do. I just. I’ll just be completely useless.”

 

Eliot raises his hand, moves like he wants to touch Quentin, but stops at the last second. That hurts. So Quentin reaches out, catches at Eliot’s fingertips, maneuvers until their hands clasp, palm to palm. 

 

“You’re never useless,” Eliot says and his eyes, hazel flecked with green and gold, are bright with the kind of intensity Quentin wants to drown in.  So much so that he almost believes him. 

 

“Thanks, El.” Quentin tells himself that his voice is all soft and stupid because he’s tired, because what he’s been fighting so goddamn hard for all these months is standing in front of him, close enough to touch, but the truth is so much simpler even if it still hurts to admit to himself. 

 

“Um, I’ll just— go now.” Quentin starts to leave, but Eliot stops him, refusing to let go of his hand.

 

“Wait, I need to— when there’s time, Q, I think we should talk. There’s something I need to tell you.”

 

“Okay,” Quentin says slowly. “But we can talk now, if you want—”

 

“Quentin, get your ass over here! We need you!” Margo’s voice cracks between them, and Quentin offers Eliot a sheepish, what-can-you-do smile.

 

“It can wait, for now. I think you’re being summoned,” Eliot says, laughing a little when Quentin rolls his eyes. 

 

“She can wait.” Except knowing Margo, she’ll likely appear in a minute or two to drag him where she wants him by his hair. “I’m— I’m really glad you’re back, El.”

 

It falls short, of course, of what Quentin really means, doesn’t come close to describing this ocean of feeling trapped in his chest, beating against his ribcage in incessant waves, something beyond words or articulation, something he can only hope Eliot sees in his eyes. He’s trying so hard to tell him. 

 

“Me too, Q. Me too.” And Eliot slowly, carefully leans forward into Quentin’s space just long enough to kiss his forehead. He steps back, mouth twisting into a soft, strange smile. “Don’t keep Bambi waiting,” he says, and disappears into the bathroom before Quentin can respond. 

 

He gives himself a few seconds, tries to imprint the feeling of Eliot’s mouth on his skin into his brain, into his memory forever, before he sighs and walks back towards the living room. 

  
  
  


Alice and Zelda are arguing in the middle of a half drawn circle, ringed with fat white candles and bundles of herbs. Kady and Penny are on opposite ends of the sofa, not looking at each other or anyone else. The tension is...palpable. 

 

Quentin looks for Margo, and finds her in the kitchen, chugging red wine from a rocks glass. She beckons him over. 

 

“What’s going on?” he asks, raising his eyebrows and giving her now empty glass a significant look. 

 

Margo rolls her eyes. “Merrin and Karras over there can’t agree on which one of them,” she gestures at Kady and Penny,  “they need to help with the ritual exorcism-like thing.”

 

“Right,” Quentin says slowly. “The ritual exorcism-like thing. Which I— definitely know about?”

 

“Oh, you know what I think you were unconscious when we had that conversation. It’s what we’re using to get Julia de-monstered enough so my axes can do their thing.”

 

“Great, sounds fun.”

 

“That’s the spirit, baby.” Margo loops her arm through Quentin’s, pulls him into the living room. He drops into the closest chair, and she perches on the arm, kicking off her shoes and shoving her feet under his thigh in one fluid movement. 

 

“There you are, Quentin.” Alice’s attention falls on him like a spotlight, and suddenly, everyone else is looking at him too. 

 

“I feel like I’m missing something here, guys. Also, are we forgetting that the last time someone performed an exorcism on Julia, she lost her shade?”

 

“This is exorcism _ -like _ , Quentin, not an actual exorcism. And the ritual includes a spell that requires two tethers,” Alice explains. “Two people who share the strongest emotional connection with Julia, almost like beacons for the human parts of her. You’re one obviously, but there’s been some debate over who the second person should be.”

 

Quentin looks over at Kady, who stares back with a storm in her eyes, and Penny, who turns away, jaw clenched hard. Fuck, he really doesn’t want to get involved in this, but…

 

“It’s Kady,” he says simply. 

 

“You know what, Coldwater—” Penny starts, but Quentin doesn’t have the time or patience for his hurt feelings. 

 

“Just stop, okay?” he snaps. “I know you love her, and she cares about you, and I don’t pretend to know what you guys might be in the future, but that doesn’t make her your Julia. She hasn’t been through the same things, not with you. I’m sorry, but I know her,  _ this _ her. And it has to be Kady.”

 

For a moment, Quentin genuinely thinks Penny might try to hit him, but his anger dies quickly, a deep sadness creeping into his eyes instead. 

 

Kady crosses her arms, stands stiff like she does when she’s uncomfortable and pretending like she isn’t. “Look, Quentin, it’s never been — simple, between us. Julia and I. So maybe—”

 

“Julia loves you,” Quentin says with a shrug. “Of course it isn’t simple— it’s true.”

 

Kady closes her eyes, takes a deep, steadying breath. “Okay. Yeah, alright. Let’s just. Get this over with.”

  
  


It’s another five minutes before they’re ready. Quentin sits cross-legged in the finished circle, his knees touching Kady’s. Zelda lights the candles while Alice deftly packs some of the herbs into a pipe. 

 

“Really?” Quentin takes the pipe. 

 

“Unless you’d rather sit here for an hour breathing in incense, then yes. Really. A concentrated dose will be significantly faster.”

 

Kady makes a face. “Do I even want to know what’s in this thing?”

 

“Probably not.”

 

Zelda stands up, smooths her hands down her thighs, straightening the creases in the fabric. “Once the ritual is complete, we will need to move quickly. Miss Hanson, I trust you will be ready?”

 

Margo, the Sorrows on her shoulders, smiles grimly. “Sure, I love stabbing my friends.” 

 

Alice picks up where Zelda left off. “As soon as the sister is expelled into the spirit bottle, I’ll send out the message to my mom, the hedges, and Josh. He’s got at least a handful of Magicians in Fillory who can do the incorporate bond spell. Everyone needs to start casting together, and stay casting otherwise this won’t work.”

 

And then it’s go time. Quentin shoots a quick look at Kady, who raises her eyebrows, gives him a tired smirk, and he thinks  _ Okay, we’re doing this.  _

 

The fire spell flows from his fingers with ease. His casting lacks Eliot’s grace, but 50 years of practice, twice a day at least, has done wonders for his muscle memory. Quentin brings the pipe to his mouth and forces Eliot from his mind, forces out everything except for Julia, what he loves about her, what he hates, the entire ocean of connection between them complete with depths still unexplored. 

 

He inhales deep into his lungs. 

 

He passes the pipe to Kady, who does the same. The space between them quickly turns hazy with sweet-smelling smoke, and Quentin’s mouth tastes acrid and dry. His eyelids feel impossibly heavy, weighed down by something vaster than simple exhaustion. Distantly, he hears Alice shout something, hears Julia’s voice except it’s not really Julia’s voice, and he desperately tries to focus, to reach for her, but despite his best efforts, his eyes shutter close. 

 

When he opens them again a moment, a minute, a millennia later, the scene has changed and he’s somewhere else. 

 

A hospital. He’s in a hospital  _ again _ . Worse though, is that he knows this hospital, is intimately familiar with its bleak hallways and small, high windows. 

 

This is the place they took him the first time he tried to kill himself. 

 

He walks the familiar path to his room, wondering why he’s here when this is supposed to be about Julia. He pushes the door open and, oh— 

 

She’s there. 

 

Julia at sixteen, rake thin and speckled with acne, curled up in an uncomfortable looking armchair shoved up as close to the bed as possible, the one containing Quentin at sixteen, asleep with one arm wrapped in thick white bandages. She’s crying, her shoulders heaving with the effort of quieting her sobs. She’s trying not to wake him up. The realization stabs and twists inside of him. There’s a piece of paper clutched in her hand, looseleaf torn from an old spiral, and he doesn’t need to see to know what’s written on it. It’s his note, after all. 

 

“Fuck, dude,” says a familiar voice behind him. “This is intense.”

 

Quentin whirls around and there’s Kady, hands shoved deep in her pockets, her eyes clouded with something closer to understanding than sympathy. 

 

“Uh, yeah, um. It wasn’t— great,” he says, and Kady snorts. 

 

“No shit.” She stares at teenage Julia as she wipes at her eyes and reaches out to take teenage Quentin’s hand. 

 

“She was so good at, uh, being there, you know? Even though she didn’t get it, exactly. Bad days, she got, but when it was this? When I just— didn’t want to be alive anymore? She struggled with that, like grasping it as a concept, I think. But she was always there. Always.”

 

Quentin drinks in the sight of her, small and so stubborn, clutching his suicide note in one hand, the other wrapped tight around his fingers, and he’s hit with a wave of emotion so strong he doubles over, taking it like a punch to the stomach. 

 

When he straightens up, the space around them has rearranged; instead of Quentin’s hospital room, it’s the Physical Kids’ Cottage. He’s not sure  _ when  _ they are, exactly, but Kady clearly does, if her ashen expression is anything to go by. 

 

_ “Fuck,” _ she says, emphatically. 

 

Quentin startles back a step as Julia sprints past him, and up the stairs like someone is dying. Turns out, someone is and it’s Kady. 

 

They watch as past Kady convulses, seizing on the bed. A needle slips from her arm and clatters to the floor. Julia is crying, running her hands over Kady’s body gently, desperately. When she starts begging, Kady looks away. But then, Julia’s hands start to glow, and the Kady on the bed starts breathing again. 

 

“She saved my life,” Kady says roughly, words torn from her throat. “I didn’t want to die; I just wanted to stop feeling so goddamn much when it was always going to be so terrible. And she’s— she’s always been stupid good at making me feel shit I don’t want to.”

 

Quentin looks away when the first tears escape Kady’s eyes. 

 

The space changes again, blurs down the middle until they’re looking at two different scenes. Kady gives him a questioning look, and Quentin shrugs; he’s got nothing. 

 

It takes him a second to realize what he’s seeing, and his stomach drops somewhere near the vicinity of his shoes. He watches as Julia creates the spell that traps him in his own mind, feels the rush she gets from performing cooperative magic for the first time with Marina, sees Kady confront Julia with the fact that because of them Quentin might never wake up. 

 

It feels fucking terrible. 

 

He couldn’t sleep for days after that happened, terrified beyond reason that if he did, he’d be trapped forever. He’d finally passed out on the kitchen table in the middle of a story Eliot was telling about Ibiza that could not be true, like physically. And he’d gotten over it, eventually, but there’d been a small part of him, squirreled away in a corner of his mind he never touched, that had hated Julia for doing that to him. 

 

Quentin looks for that part now, and he can’t find it. It isn’t there. Time, or better things, have expelled it and instead, all he finds is the gaping hole that is Julia’s absence, his terror at the possibility of never seeing her again, the clear, all-encompassing knowledge that they, the two of them together, still have so much left to do. 

 

Kady’s hand finds his, and he holds on like a lifeline, an anchor. He turns to look at her, and sees the scene in front of her: a storm and a barn and Reynard, still alive. But Kady turns her face away from it, looks back at Quentin and her eyes are clear, determined. And Quentin can’t help himself; he grins at her. She huffs a little, like she thinks he’s ridiculous and wants him to know that, but she grins back anyway. 

 

Together, they close their eyes. 

 

* * *

 

Back at the apartment, Julia opens her eyes with a gasp. She sees several things: Penny, grim-faced and casting something she doesn’t recognize, Kady, collapsed backwards in Alice’s arms, Quentin, half-curled into Eliot’s lap, and Margo, double-wielding two actual axes. 

 

“Do it,” she says, her own voice sounding strange in her ears. “Do it now, before she comes back.”

 

“Oh, fuck me.” Margo groans. “I really am sorry about this, Wicker.” And she swings.

 

Julia closes her eyes.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so this got a little long. originally, there was only going to be two chapters in part ii, but then I lost my mind and now there's three. shit happens. that being said, we're almost to the endgame now and I, for one, am having the time of my life. 
> 
> thank you all SO MUCH for the comments and kudos. I feast on them.


	7. the light of autumn; three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Quentin has Thoughts re: Eliot's face, Julia sleeps it off, and rain (love) will make the flowers grow.

**part ii: the light of autumn**

* * *

  

_three_

 

When Quentin opens his eyes, the first thing he sees is Eliot’s face. That makes him smile, despite the fact that for the last several months opening his eyes to Eliot’s face inches above his own pretty much signaled the opposite of anything pleasurable because it wasn’t really _Eliot’s_ face. Which sucked even more because he kind of loves Eliot’s face. It’s a good face. 

 

The aforementioned face is currently cycling through a fascinating array of emotions and Quentin realizes, a little belatedly, that he may have just said all of that out loud. Then, a little more belatedly, he realizes that he’s definitely a little high.

 

“Oh no,” Quentin says, horrified.

 

“Oh yes, apparently.” Eliot sounds a little strangled.

 

Eliot helps him sit up, a strong arm around his shoulders.

 

“That’s it,” he says softly in Quentin’s ear; he must be able to feel him shaking. “It’s going to be okay.”

 

“Nothing is ever going to be okay again.” That’s Quentin’s high brain supporting his broken brain. 

 

“Jesus _fuck,”_   Kady says with feeling, and Quentin jolts, realizing for the first time that neither of them are in the position they started in. In fact, they’re behind the sofa, the spell circle completely out of sight, Eliot curled around Quentin and Kady’s head in Alice’s lap. 

 

“Do it. Do it now, before she comes back.”

 

Oh god, _Julia._

 

Quentin tries to stand, to get to her, to do anything, but Eliot’s arms tighten around him, pulling him back. 

 

“El, let me go. You have to let me go!” Julia, he has to save Julia. He needs to do this _one fucking thing_ right.

 

Quentin breaks Eliot’s grip, stumbles up and sees Margo, axes raised, and Julia, arms at her side, waiting.

 

“Oh fuck me. I really am sorry about this, Wicker.”

 

Eliot yanks him back down before Margo’s axes find their target, but he still hears the wet, meaty thud, and Julia— Julia _screams._ Quentin shudders, breath hitching in a sob, fingers clawing at Eliot’s arms as they stay locked around him. Everything is too bright and too painful, his mind skirts the edge of his high and finds only an abyss waiting for him, deep and dark and utterly quiet. He wonders what it would feel like to just— step off. 

 

“Q, we need to do this now!” 

 

_Q ._ Kady’s never called him that before. He opens his eyes to find her staring at him, a little wild but a lot determined. She waits for his nod, shares a look with Alice before they tap on their phones in unison. 

 

“I’ve got it!” Margo shouts. “Start the spell before the fucker comes back for an unnecessary and disappointing sequel.”

 

So Quentin, dazed and a little high and haunted by Julia’s screams, slips out of Eliot’s grip and forces his shaking fingers through the tuts. He slumps against the back of the couch, and tries to focus on the energy building in the air. 

 

There is something incredibly special about cooperative magic; it doesn’t feel like any other type of magic, not the shattering adrenaline of battle magic or the quiet center he finds at the heart of a minor mending. Cooperative magic _grows._  

 

He feels it wrapping around his spine, crashing through the blood in his veins, spitting out from his fingertips. He feels the familiar warmth of Eliot’s magic, the sharpness of Alice’s, Kady’s steadiness. But more than that, than them, he feels— beyond. Beyond this apartment and New York City, beyond Brakebills and Fillory, beyond indifferent gods and their cosmic monsters. Because this is _magic,_  being performed across borders, across worlds, by Magicians and hedge witches and anyone in between. 

 

It feels. Well, it feels pretty fucking incredible. 

 

The spell ends. Aching and off-kilter, Quentin half staggers, half crawls to Julia’s side. Margo’s axes lay bloody and forgotten as she presses her hands against one of the gaping holes in Julia’s shoulders. Quentin scrambles to put pressure on the other one, and for the second time in less than two days, he has the blood of someone he loves on his hands. 

 

Penny shoves between them, pulls Julia’s limp body into his arms, and stands before Quentin can do more than blink. 

 

“We need to get her to Lipson. If you’re coming with, hold on.”

  


Their cooperative spell drained the ambient supply, but luckily, Lipson used to be a trauma surgeon, and she patches Julia up the old-fashioned way. 

 

By the time they’re allowed back to see her, Quentin’s moved from exhaustion into a manic haze, his entire body vibrating with a frantic energy. He keeps his hands in his pockets because they won’t stop shaking. Kady is the opposite, stone still and almost ossified, staring down at Julia’s still form, dark hair a halo, face pale and beaded with sweat. Penny sits in the chair closest to the bed, head in his hands. 

 

“She’ll be out for several more hours at least,” Lipson is saying, and he’s pretty sure that at least Kady is listening to her. “She lost a lot of blood, and the surgery was intense. Her body needs time to heal, but she’s strong. Honestly, she’s a hell of a lot stronger than she looks.”

 

“Yeah,” Kady says absently. “She was a goddess for awhile.”

 

Lipson sighs. “Henry Fogg and his _fucking_ quests.” 

 

She leaves the room muttering to herself about irresponsible deans and recalcitrant graduate students.

 

A different pair of voices float down the hall.

 

“Fuck _off_ , Margo, I’m fine.”

 

“You literally just had a gaping shoulder wound; I know because I’m the one who fucking put it there!”

 

“Hm, yes, did I ever thank you for literally stabbing me in the back?”

 

“God _damn_ it, Eliot.”

 

Margo stalks through the door, Eliot a step behind despite his significantly longer stride. Quentin’s eyes flicker over him quickly, noting the tightness around his eyes, the hard clench of his jaw. He’s in pain, but it isn’t intolerable. Quentin can live with that for now. He almost doesn’t notice when Alice slips in behind them.

 

“So, how’s my second victim?” Margo asks, veering more towards a demand, but her voice is oddly vulnerable. 

 

“Sleeping,” Penny says tersely. 

 

“But she’ll be okay,” Kady murmurs. “She’s going to be okay.”

 

“Thank god,” Eliot says softly. “Q, are you—.”

 

Quentin jerks a little, blinks rapidly until his eyes come into focus on Eliot’s face. 

 

“I— yeah. Yeah.” 

 

He pulls his hands out of his pockets, intent on scrubbing the fatigue from his eyes, but Eliot moves faster, long fingers wrapping around Quentin’s wrists, just below his hands— his hands, which are sticky. Sticky with drying blood. _Julia’s_ blood. And Eliot’s _hands._ And— 

 

_You’re upset._ _I’ll get this gross corpse out of your sight._

 

That poor man’s body, and the smell of New York river water. The monster, giddy and handsy, slipping fingers down his shirt collar.

 

_Q, you have to stop._

 

Fillory and the stench of blood. Alice’s and his and the sum of all his stupidest mistakes. Gentle arms around him, holding him steady, keeping him together when he wants to shake apart. 

 

_Who gets proof of concept like that?_

 

— and two true things can exist at the same time, in the same space, and Quentin is caught in the clusterfuck between them. Because Eliot is the safest place he’s ever known, but the monster broke that, shattered it with every act of violence it committed with Eliot’s body, each unwanted touch, every bruise or broken bone. And they’re left here in the wreckage, and Quentin can’t— his _hands._

 

He yanks himself back, out of Eliot’s grip, eyes wide and aching. 

 

“Oh god, I need to.” He stumbles backwards until he reaches the tiny bathroom tucked in a far corner. “I need to get it _off._ ”

 

The door opens and he practically falls  inside, banging his knee against the sink in his haste. The door swings shut behind him. Quentin sinks to the floor. He balls his hands into fists, digs his knuckles into his skull until it hurts.

 

“Fuck, fuck, fuck. God why am I so fucking _stupid._ ” 

 

The door opens.

 

“You’re not stupid. You’re a lot of things, Quentin, but stupid isn’t one of them.” 

 

Quentin lifts his head, but can’t meet her eyes.

 

“Thanks, Alice.” 

 

Because of course it’s her, forcing her way inside and seeing him like this. He doesn’t understand why it always feels so much worse when it’s her, as if his greatest sin is how weak and pathetic he is when the truth is so much more complicated than that. 

 

The two of them are very good at reducing each other to their simplest parts, whether cruel or kind, it’s devoid of nuance and blind to context. They never really _see_ each other, not fully. 

 

“I mean it,” she snaps, then softens. “Cut yourself a little slack, okay?”

 

Quentin hears the faucet creak, water splashing into the sink, then Alice kneels in front of him, pulls his hands gently into her lap. She starts to clean Julia’s blood off of him with a warm, wet towel. His eyelids flutter closed for just a second. 

 

It feels— nice. 

 

Something inside of him splinters, breaks off like the part of a cliff-side beaten by waves until it slides into the sea. 

 

“I just— want it to be over, I guess.” He admits quietly, and it almost feels, not good exactly but certainly like something, to say it out loud. “And we’re getting closer— I mean, fuck, we just saved Julia and _Eliot’s back_ and I should be fucking _ecstatic._ Not like this.  Like I’m slipping somehow, behind or— or away.”

 

Alice’s breath catches, skips like a heart missing a beat. She carefully sets the damp, pink-stained towel on the closed toilet seat, then returns to his hands, gripping them with her own, so much smaller and stronger than his. 

 

Something shatters on the other side of the door and they both jump. Whatever moment they were sharing breaks and Alice stands up. She hesitates, looking back at Quentin, her concern evident on her face. He gets to his feet. 

 

“It’s okay,” he says softly. “I’ll be right out.”

 

She bites her lip, and slips out of the bathroom. Quentin takes several long, deep breaths before following. 

 

Margo and Alice immediately stop whispering intensely to each other when they see him. Eliot stands a little apart, the shattered remains of a glass against the opposite wall, his hands clenched and shaking at his sides.

 

Quentin swallows, slips past them to reach Julia’s bed. He’d say that she looks like she’s sleeping except for the fact that Julia sleeps like a fucking weirdo, starfished on her stomach and never still, turning and twitching like a puppy acting out its best, most active dreams. Sharing a bed with her is hell. 

 

He tucks her hair behind her ear and hates how helpless and stupid he feels, hovering over her as her body attempts to heal, flinching away from Eliot when all he wants is to be close to him, his own body giving out on him because he can’t force his broken brain to care about things like food or sleep. 

 

And honestly, he just really, _really_ hates hospitals. He’s spent so much of his life in them, for some reason or another, they’ve stopped feeling like places to heal and more like prisons.

 

“Hey,” Kady says quietly, and he jumps; he hadn’t heard her approach. “You should go back to the apartment. Catch a nap, or at least a shower because I gotta be honest, you’re a little ripe.”

 

Quentin touches Julia’s hand. “I should—”

 

“You know I’ll look after her,” she says, stiff but not harsh. “Just— take a beat. Hospitals suck.” The look she gives him is just a little too knowing and he shifts uncomfortably. 

 

She isn’t wrong, though. He genuinely does not remember when he last showered. A couple of days at least. Now that he’s paying attention, it feels like there’s a thin film of grime covering every inch of his skin. It isn’t pleasant, and he kinda feels like scratching his scalp off.

 

There’s some shuffling behind him and Margo loops her arm through his. Quentin’s eyes flicker to Eliot, who’s watching him already, gaze intense, heavy somehow. He looks at the floor. 

 

“Come on, Q. Let’s go.” Margo lets him go long enough for him to lean over Julia, kiss her damp forehead.

 

“See you soon, Jules,” he whispers, and allows himself to be steered out of the room.

  


 

The shower helps. By the time he steps out from under the spray, his skin is pink and warm. The bathroom mirror is completely fogged up, but Quentin knows what he’d see in it anyways and it isn’t impressive. Too-prominent ribs, a mottled mess of old and new bruises, and shadows under his eyes so deep and dark it looks like the space above his cheekbones has been hollowed out with a spoon. Yeah, mirrors are not his friends right now. 

 

“Fuck.” He swears quietly after a moment.

 

He forgot to grab a semi-clean pair of jeans and shirt. He eyes the clothes he stripped out of before his shower. They look...crusty. Quentin makes a face; yeah, that’s not happening. 

 

Instead, he grabs a towel, wraps it around his waist, and opens the bathroom door, steam pillowing out behind him. A quick glance down the hall; the path to his room is blessedly clear, and he walks it quickly, slipping inside and turning to close the door behind him. He dresses quickly, scrubs the towel over his hair, then combs it back with his fingers. 

 

He feels— better. Cleaner, at least. And that’s not nothing. Not nothing. Maybe that’s a good place to start for him, just like in general. 

 

Quentin wanders out into the living room a couple minutes later feeling a little more centered. That is, until he sees Margo standing by the couch with a phone, _his_ phone, pressed to her ear. 

 

“Yeah, I said I’d tell him. But you should try googling the word ‘valet’ sometime. Surprisingly,  you’re not going to find a picture of your fucking kid.”

 

She hangs up, and her arm drops to her side, still white-knuckling his phone. 

 

“Fucking _cunt._ ”

 

Oh no.

 

“Hey,” Quentin says quietly, stepping further into the room, and two pairs of wide, horrified eyes greet him. “Who was that?”

 

Except that he knows. He already knows. 

 

“Your mother.” Margo’s voice is hard, unapologetic. 

 

“Q, when—,” Eliot clears his throat. “When did your dad die?”

 

Right, because even now if his mother calls him it has to do with his dad, even though his dad is dead. On top of every other fucking thing, all the nightmares within nightmares, his dad is still fucking dead. 

 

Quentin sits down on the couch next to Eliot. 

 

“Uh, actually he—um, died when I was still— before we got our memories back. So I wasn’t. I didn’t know until after. After the funeral.”

 

The following silence is horrible. 

 

Quentin can’t make himself look at either of them so his eyes are fixed on his lap when Eliot’s hand moves into his line of vision, settles with a warm, familiar weight over his own. He breathes out shakily, something caught between a laugh and a dry sob. 

 

He’s always loved Eliot’s hands. Elegant, strong, oddly calloused, though he knows the reason for that now. Spend 50 years with someone and you tend to get around to tragic childhood backstories at some point. He knows about Indiana, the farm, his father— everything Eliot was capable of sharing with him. At the time, Quentin had pressed kisses to every callous he could find, covering Eliot’s palms, knuckles, the spaces between his fingers with better memories. 

 

What he hadn’t done was tell him this: that he is in awe of how good Eliot is, in spite of everything, how he lived through violence without ever becoming it, that he makes Quentin feel safe and protected and _loved_ in ways he never has before.

 

Maybe if he’d told him then, Eliot would’ve chosen him when Quentin asked him to, and believed that Quentin was choosing him too. 

 

It probably isn’t the right time. Okay, it definitely isn’t the right time, but it’s just been so _hard_ these last few months, and he— _wants_ with an exquisite ache, one he barely recognizes from another life. 

 

So, Quentin makes a decision. He scoots closer to Eliot, doesn’t stop until their bodies are pressed hip to hip, the warm line of Eliot’s thigh against his own. He thinks about how it felt when he came back to himself earlier, in Eliot’s arms. Familiar. Safe. So much better than anything he’s been feeling these last months. 

 

Quentin lays his head on Eliot’s shoulder and sighs. It feels like a victory, somehow. 

 

“I really miss him,” he whispers, furious with himself when his eyes burn, threatening him with tears he won’t be able to control once they start. It’s why he can’t let them start. 

 

“I know, baby.” Eliot’s voice is muffled, his mouth pressed into Quentin’s hair so it’s possible he’s imagining the endearment, but he doesn’t think so. 

 

The couch shifts, and he feels Margo settle on his other side. She squeezes his hand. 

 

“We can go with you. If you want.” She sounds hesitant, more uncertain than he’s ever heard her. It’s not surprising, exactly, because for as long as he’s known her, Margo’s always been careful with the things she loves. Unless one of those things just really needed their ass kicked into gear. 

 

Quentin breathes out a small, tremulous sigh and shakes his head. 

 

“That’s okay. I can go on my own. It won’t take long.”

 

He stands up slowly, reluctant to leave his warm, safe place sandwiched between Margo and Eliot. He thinks about changing into something nicer, something other than jeans maybe, but decides its not worth the effort; he’s going to need all his energy and then some just to get through the trip. 

 

Quentin feels Eliot’s eyes on him, but he doesn’t say anything. Quentin leaves.

  


 

He stares down at the headstone. 

 

_Ted Coldwater. Loving Father._  

 

Four words, two dates, and a body in the ground. It doesn’t seem fair for that to be all that’s left of his dad. Quentin touches two fingers to the top of the cold stone.

 

“Hey, Dad.” His voice trembles, and each breath stutters and shakes.

 

There’s a small plastic vase on its side by his feet, spilling mostly dead daisies out onto the ground. Quentin sighs, and bends to straighten the vase when he realizes he forgot to bring fresh flowers with him. 

 

It’s not that big of a deal. And rationally, he knows that, but he also knows it was a simple fucking task and he should’ve been able to handle it. He should be able to handle so much more than this, but he can’t because his brain hates him and he’s broken and sometimes he just wants to— 

 

He hears footsteps, heavy and deliberate as if the person is trying to be heard. Quentin doesn’t need to turn around to know who it is. He does so anyway. 

 

Eliot, dressed head to toe in black, approaches him slowly. His hair, still longer than he’s ever worn it before, is slicked back, a few stubborn curls tumbling free across his forehead. He’s the most beautiful person Quentin’s seen in his entire life. 

 

“Hey.” Eliot stops at his side.

 

“Hey.” Quentin doesn’t trust his voice to do more than return the greeting. 

 

“I know you said we didn’t need to come, but—,” Eliot shifts, and their shoulders brush. “I didn’t want you to think you were alone.”

 

Quentin stares down at his father’s headstone and thinks about another grave, one he dug himself, on another world in a life he never really lived. 

 

“I told him, you know. Before everything went to shit, I told him about— our life, Teddy, all of it.”

 

“All of it?” Eliot repeats quietly, but Quentin knows what he’s trying to ask.

 

“He wanted to meet you.” It hurts to say those words, but not so much as the next ones do. “I told him it wasn’t— that we weren’t— like that anymore. Or at all, I guess.”

 

“Did he believe that?”

 

“I— what?” Startled, Quentin looks over at Eliot, who is stiff-jawed and pale, staring straight ahead. 

 

“Am I really that good of a liar, Q?” Eliot turns to face him and Quentin inhales sharply at the expression on his face. 

 

“But you said—”

 

“I said a lot of things. I was,” Eliot swallows, eyes flickering to Quentin so quickly he almost misses it. “I still _am_ afraid. Sometimes, I think I’ll never stop being afraid and my whole life will just be a poorly lit montage of me letting everything I love slip through my fingers because I was too much of a coward to hold onto it.”

 

“You’re not a coward, Eliot.”

 

“Oh, Q. You don’t know—”

 

Quentin stops him there. “Please don’t tell me what I don’t or do know. Not now.”

 

“Right.” Eliot says softly. 

 

Quentin fidgets, digs the toe of his right shoe into the ground. 

 

“I think you’re brave,” he says after a long moment, “even if you don’t. I think a lot of other people would have given up, if they’d been through what you have. I think it’s brave that you haven’t, and I— know a lot about wanting to give up. So maybe trust me on this one, yeah?” He tries for a smile, but doesn’t quite make it there. 

 

Eliot stares at him. Tries to speak, and fails. It’s one of only a handful of times Quentin’s seen him genuinely speechless. 

 

“I forgot the flowers,” he says after a moment.

 

“Oh.” Eliot finds his voice. “I can help with that.”

 

Eliot raises his hands, starts to move his fingers carefully, slower than usual. His wrists start to shake and he almost loses the spell, but Quentin steadies him. Eliot’s mouth curls into a smile. 

 

Flowers burst into existence. White lilies, deep crimson roses, something he’s pretty sure are chrysanthemums, and an array of white, pink, and red carnations cover his father’s grave, vibrant and alive, filling the air with a sweet, floral scent.

 

“El, they’re beautiful,” he says hoarsely. 

 

Quentin reaches out and touches the tip of a rose petal. “Thank you.”

 

“I’m sorry I never got to meet him.”

 

Quentin smiles. 

 

“He would have liked you.” 

 

The truth of it stabs into him with the sudden viciousness of a knife. His dad would have _adored_ Eliot, who would have been charmingly awkward about the whole thing while secretly enjoying the hell out of the attention. He wonders if Eliot would have seen the sparks of Teddy, the little things about Ted Coldwater that had passed down to his namesake. Eliot used to call Teddy his mini-Q, but Quentin’s always though he looked more like his dad than him. 

 

 But Eliot would never meet his dad so none of this really mattered. And Teddy, his son, _their_ son, never actually existed so who cares if he looked more like Quentin or his dad? His vision starts to blur, the different flowers running together like watercolor. The tears in his eyes build and build and build, and there’s nothing he can do to stop them. 

 

He misses his dad. He misses his son. He misses Julia. He misses Eliot, who’s standing right next to him. He misses feeling like he exists in this story as something other than a convenient punching bag for when the world is feeling particularly cruel. 

 

“Q, come on, look at me.”

 

Eliot’s voice reaches him like a lifeline, and Quentin blinks up at him hazily. Eliot’s fingers brush his cheeks.

 

“You’re crying,” he says softly, thumbing away some of the wetness. 

 

“I’m sad,” Quentin tells him, momentarily baffled by how true it is, how simple. He’s just so fucking sad, and he didn’t even notice. 

 

“I know. How can I help?”

 

Two sentences, four words, and Quentin feels himself _shatter._  

 

“You already are,” Quentin whispers through his tears, wonder in his voice because how can Eliot still not see? “El, you’re _here_.”

 

And then he does something he’s been wanting to do from the moment Eliot opened his eyes in that hospital bed and said his name. He steps closer, wraps his arms around Eliot’s waist, buries his head in his chest and _cries._

 

Quentin is not a pretty crier. His face gets all scrunchy and red, and he makes weird, choking animal noises. It’s not pleasant and it tends to go on for a long, long time. But Eliot just wraps his arms around him, anchors one hand on the back of his neck, curls over him like he’s trying to protect Quentin from the world even though it's what’s inside his head that’s tearing him apart. 

 

They stand wrapped around each other, surrounded by flowers and other people’s graves for a long, long time.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so that wraps up part ii, there's another interlude, part iii, and a sort of epilogue/weird end note kind of thing still to come. tentatively. because my plans tend to end up more like guidelines more often than not.
> 
> thank you so fucking much for all your comments and kudos. this story means a lot to me and I'm so so happy to be sharing it with you. 
> 
> oh, also the chapter summary includes an incredibly lame reference to a Les Mis song.


	8. interlude; Zelda

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Hey. Been awhile. Welcome to the Underworld."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this chapter has the added warning of a minor character death. If you'd like specifics on who it is, hit up the end notes before you read.

_**interlude; Zelda** _

 

Librarian heroin indeed. Kady Orloff-Diaz is not far off in her estimation there. One does not become a Librarian if one is not near desperate in the pursuit of learning, willing to give up anything and everything necessary to accumulate and protect knowledge. Zelda would know; it’s what she dedicated her life to. 

 

Her path now, however, seems to have diverged from her original plan. But perhaps there is some credence to the adage that once a hedge witch, always a hedge witch. 

 

When Kady sends her a message some hours after they successfully banished the monster inhabiting Julia Wicker’s body, Zelda doesn’t hesitate. She heads directly for the Brakebills infirmary, unsure of what she will find there, or even if she will be let in the door, but it seems that at least for now, Henry Fogg as forgiven her most recent transgressions. 

 

Julia lays in a bed in the middle of the room. The curtains are drawn, the lights are dimmed, and the young woman in question is glowing ever so slightly. Zelda stops, tilts her head. She assumes this a recent development. She steps into the room and its other occupants turn to look at her. 

 

Penny Adiyodi, of the 23rd timeline, spares her little more than a glance before returning his attention to the unconscious Miss Wicker. Kady paces, restlessly eating up the space between the bed and Alice Quinn, who stands against the far wall, arms crossed under her chest. She recognizes the scroll in Kady’s hand— its the one Eliot Waugh claims leads to the realm of the Old Gods. 

 

To know what is written within, to hold it and _understand…_ A shiver racks her body. No. That is Everett’s affliction, not hers. 

 

Kady stops pacing, and Alice touches her arm. They share a look. Zelda almost smiles; what a force those two young women make, just breaking the surface of their power. 

 

“Good. You’re here,” Kady says brusquely, slipping the scroll into the pocket of her sweater. “We need to do something about Everett. Now.”

 

Ice drips down Zelda’s spine. “What happened? Is Harriet—?”

 

“She’s fine, just laying low for awhile. Apparently, your boss is jonesing for another fix. He’s tapping directly into the pipes now. He found some of the hedges we had trying to do the same thing.” Kady’s tone doesn’t leave much question about what befell those hedges. 

 

Zelda closes her eyes. It isn’t so much grief as it is shame which overwhelms her. So much of this is her fault. 

 

“There isn’t anything left of them,” Alice says quietly. “He _destroyed_ them, Zelda. Completely.”

 

She feels Alice’s eyes on her, alight with righteousness and selfishness and the desperate desire to prove that she is more than her mistakes. She forces herself to look back, convey the challenge she feels in herself— both of them will have to be better than what they were. 

 

“He needs to be stopped, then. Permanently, should it prove necessary.”

 

Penny looks up at that, but doesn’t say anything. Kady and Alice have already come to the same conclusion. 

 

“Great. How?” 

 

Fortunately, Zelda is saved from answering by the loud buzzing coming from Kady’s phone. Alice picks it up off of Julia’s bed, tosses it to Kady. 

 

“It’s Margo,” she says, and now even Penny is in on the shared, unreadable looks. Zelda waits. 

 

Kady answers her phone. “Yeah? Wait, _what?_ Okay, just— just hold on. There’s at least one ward that might buy us a little time. Here, I’m giving you to Alice. Yeah. Yeah, we’ll be there as soon as possible.”

 

Alice, her brow furrowing as she tries to follow the one-sided conversation, takes the phone when it’s handed to her. She turns away, listens for a bit, then starts talking rapidly. 

 

Kady looks back at Zelda, her face pale and drawn tight at the corners of her mouth and eyes. “Turns out, we have an even bigger problem.”

 

Penny groans. “Oh my god, _how?”_

 

“The incorporate bonds on the monster and his sister are starting to fade, and we still don’t have the first fucking clue on how to destroy them.”

 

Zelda glances at the scroll, half-visible in Kady’s pocket. 

 

“Have you considered—?” she starts to say.

 

Penny interrupts her. “Okay, no. Bad idea. We don’t know shit about that thing, except that the monster’s sister wants it. That’s not exactly a recommendation I’m comfortable with.”

 

Kady hesitates. “If anyone would know what to do about the monsters, these Old Gods, whatever the fuck they are, are our best bet. We’re running out of time.”

 

Penny stares at her, a long searching look that makes Kady shift almost imperceptibly, as if the scrutiny makes her uncomfortable. Eventually, he shrugs and she relaxes. 

 

“Be careful.”

 

Kady glances over her shoulder at Alice, who has propped the phone up on the counter so she can walk Margo through a specific set of complicated tuts. Kady sighs, turns back to Zelda with a resigned expression on her face. 

 

“Guess it's you and me.” She pulls the scroll out of her pocket, opens her palm so Zelda can grab one edge. 

 

The paper is soft with age, feels impossibly delicate between her fingertips. They really should have gloves on for this, but she supposes it's too late now. She refuses to think about the irreparable damage the oil from their skin is undoubtedly doing, and returns her focus to the task at hand. Together, they slowly and carefully start to pull open the scroll. Zelda catches a glimpse of thickly inked script, of which she does not recognize a single word, before the world jolts violently beneath her feet, and her vision twists, tunneling through something bright and endless. She feels Kady beside her, her voice raised in fear or anger, and is grateful not to be alone. 

 

The world straightens abruptly, the ground solid beneath her feet once again. Zelda stumbles slightly, but manages to stay upright. Kady curses up a streak from where she’s sprawled on the carpeted floor. Zelda offers her a hand up, and she takes it. 

 

They appear to be in some kind of...corporate office environment. A man in a polo shirt and khaki pants, holding a golf club, seems happy to see them. Zelda cannot say that she feels the same. 

 

“Oh, excellent! You’ve completed the quest then. Congratulations are in order, I believe.” The man tries to hand them pieces of cake. Zelda looks at Kady, who rolls her eyes. Neither of them take the cake. 

 

The man doesn’t seem to know what to do with that. He fumbles slightly, putting the plates on the desk behind him. “Ah, well. I’m sure we have some gluten free options around here somewhere, if that’s what you’re—.”

 

“We don’t want your fucking cake, dude. And we’re not a quest. We found your creepy teleportation scroll on a monster that you fuckers created.”

 

Zelda blinks. “Perhaps we should avoid referring to the oldest, most powerful beings in any universe as ‘fuckers’, Kady.”

 

“Powerful? Hit me back after you’ve enjoyed a stint or two in state-funded detox, then we can talk about motherfucking powerful.” She scoffs, then narrows her eyes at the man, whose golf club hangs limply from one hand. “Now, I’d like to speak to the manager”

 

“I don’t— have a manager.”

 

Kady rolls her eyes. “Your boss. Dude in charge. Older white guy who tells you what to do. I mean, this place doesn’t really feel like a feminist establishment, but hey, you might still surprise me.”

 

The man visibly composes himself. “If you aren’t here about the quest, I’m afraid I can’t help you.”

 

“We’re here about _your_ fucking monsters, Dr. Frankenstein! Remember Iris? Bacchus? Your friends are dead because of those things, and _my_ friends are trying to clean up the mess. And I’m not willing to stand by and watch them die for it.”

 

The argument continues, but Zelda can’t make herself listen to it anymore. She is well-versed in how it will end. Kady and her beautiful, stubborn soul will continue to try and convince this being, whom she can only assume is one of the elusive Old Gods, to help them, but it won’t work. 

 

It won’t work for the simple fact that her whole premise is predicated on a basic assumption that the Old Gods care. It’s become increasingly clear that is simply not the case. Whatever causes the gods to turn their heads in humanity’s direction, the heartbreaking conviction of a young woman desperate to protect her friends is certainly not it. 

 

“There has to be something we can do!” Kady is saying now, her voice raised. “Fine, you won’t help, but if those things get loose, they’re coming straight for you and yours. And this time, I swear to god I will keep me and mine well the fuck away from any of it. Then you’ll _have_ to do something.”

 

The man is quiet for a long moment. “There is only place I know of where such creatures can be destroyed. Or at the very least, contained indefinitely. But you will not enjoy the journey.”

 

“Yeah, well, when have we fucking ever. Tell me.”

 

And he does. 

  


 

When they reappear in the infirmary, Penny almost falls out his chair and Julia is awake. Alice is at Kady’s side in seconds, gripping her elbow, anxious eyes flitting back and forth between her and Zelda. 

 

“What the hell happened?” Her voice crests on the edge of breaking. 

 

“I—” Kady starts, but then she sees Julia and her tired smile. 

 

“It appears, Alice, that we’ve just returned from the realm of the Old Gods,” Zelda says, taking over for Kady, who seems to be struggling with the basic tenements of speech as she moves slowly to Julia’s side. 

 

Alice takes a moment to process that, while Zelda uses the same moment to come to terms with what she now knows she needs to do. 

 

For a moment, the room and its occupants fade to background noise. 

 

Zelda does not look it, but she’s been alive a long time— long enough to have had a daughter, to have raised and lost her; to have given her life in pursuit of something that was supposed to matter; to have hurt people, imprisoned them, done all manner of unspeakable things because she _believed._ In Everett, in the Order. 

 

Now, though, now there is a gap in her belief, a chasm of something unrecognizable opening up in whatever is left of her soul. She told Kady not long ago that she trusted her to make the decisions that would hurt the least amount of people. She didn’t fully understand what that meant until now. 

 

Zelda comes back to herself, once again centered in the present, the distracting, nebulous questions of morality locked away. 

 

“Perhaps it's time we regroup,” she suggests gently. “I do believe we have a lot to discuss, and an increasingly short amount of time in which to do it.”

 

Penny and Kady both look at Julia, who shrugs. 

 

“I’m a little sore, but other than that I feel weirdly okay.”

 

Kady smiles fondly, a strange small thing. “Jules, you are literally glowing.”

 

Julia looks down at her hands, which are, in fact, radiating a soft golden light. Her mouth twists. 

 

“Yeah, that’s still something to process. But I’m good to travel.” She glances at Penny. “So you know, let’s blow this popsicle stand.” She wiggles her shoulders a little, grins. 

 

Kady and Penny sigh at the same time. Julia huffs. 

 

“Q would have laughed.”

 

“But I mean, Coldwater’s kind of an idiot, Jules.”

  


 

“So what you’re saying is, these Old God assholes ducked their deus ex machina duties and now we’re stuck playing mirror inception?” Margo Hanson, as always, has a way with words. 

 

“We don’t know for sure that the Seam is in an actual mirror, just that it’s in the mirror realm.” Kady says, rubbing a tired hand over her eyes. 

 

“Please, it’s totally going to be in some dust-covered monstrosity. For the sake of the narrative symbolism alone.”

 

Kady sighs, but Alice nods slowly. 

 

“I think I know where it’ll be.”

 

Kady and Alice are at the center of all the planning, the rest of them scattered around the living room, offering varying levels of support. Zelda is confident they will come up with the best possible course of action. She, of course, has already decided on the part she’s going to play. For now, she stays out of the way, content to observe this small group of remarkable Magicians. 

 

Alice sits in a gauche, gold arm chair while Kady paces the length of the carpet in front of her. Julia lays on the couch, her feet in Eliot Waugh’s lap, both of them so recently injured and thus gently bullied into positions of comfort. Margo and her sharp-witted commentary sits on Eliot’s other side while Penny hovers behind the couch, near Julia’s head. 

 

Quentin Coldwater sits on the floor halfway between Julia and Eliot, though he sways ever so slightly towards the latter. He looks very tired, and small, his knees tucked up under his chin. 

 

How old is he, she wonders. Twenty-four? Twenty-five? How old are any of them? Not over twenty-eight, she’s certain. 

 

What had Harriet been like at that age? Passionate. Headstrong. Reckless in her beliefs and her actions. A unique terror defined that period of her life, knowing her daughter was out in a world she couldn’t protect her from, determined to tear down all the walls she herself had built. Was it worth what it cost, in the end?

 

Zelda does not look it, but she’s been alive a long time. 

 

Across the room, Quentin Coldwater holds the pieces of a broken mug in his hands and mends it, laughing a little as he shows it to Julia. 

  


Kady, Alice, and Penny unanimously select themselves as the ones going to the Seam. Quentin looks like he wants to argue, but Julia’s iron grip on his hand and Eliot’s hold on the back of his neck make him hesitate, and he doesn’t get the chance. Zelda insists on accompanying them as well, citing Harriet as her reason for needing to see this through to the end. Alice shoots her a knowing look; out of them all, she understands the power of a redemption story. 

 

As the others gather supplies, Zelda slips out of the room, pulling a folded piece of paper out of her pocket. Alice’s bag hangs from a hook at the end of the hall. She places the paper carefully inside. Then, she takes out her phone and sends a single text. 

 

Thirty seconds later, she’s back in the living room. 

  


 

The mirror realm pricks and pulls at her, unsettling against her skin. The grey tones shift, refuse to stay still. The effect is— wrong, off-putting in ways that can’t be named. Alice leads them on steadily, only faltering when they reach a tall, imposing door. 

 

“Even when,” Alice swallows, tries again. “Even when I was niffin, I stayed away from this place. Like I knew better, somehow.”

 

“Well, as a person known for _not_ knowing better, allow me.” Kady shoves the door open with her shoulder. 

 

It opens soundlessly. They enter quickly, none of them willing to linger, and into a room with a curved, vaulted ceiling and a single, covered object at the back. Penny reaches it first, and yanks off the sheet, revealing a tall, ornate mirror. 

 

Zelda’s not sure what she’s looking at, exactly. It could a swirl of stars, a part of the night sky cut out and contained behind old glass except the darkness is too black, too deep. 

 

It’s a void. 

 

“Alice. The bottles,” she says, lets some urgency slip into her voice. 

 

Alice blinks, shakes her head a little, like she’s shaking off something unpleasant. She tosses one bottle into the mirror, which ripples and swallows it whole. She lifts the second bottle, but before she can throw it after the first, something flies over their heads and shatters the glass. 

 

Alice screams, Penny and Kady whirl around, and Zelda grimaces. He’s a little early. 

 

Everett Rowe stands in the doorway. His chest heaves, and his eyes hold a mania that was probably always there— she was just too blind to see it. It surprises her, how little she feels for this man she once counted as her savior. Her hand up, her step out of the dark, relentless world of hedge witches. Of her mother. And he had taken her loyalty for granted, so much so that he’d followed her here.

 

He can’t do magic in the mirror realm, no matter how many reservoirs he drains or pipes he breaks. That was the point. There’s nothing he can do here without destroying himself in the process. And that, the man’s ego would not allow. 

 

Something bumps against Zelda’s shoe. It’s a weight of some kind, the same grey, shifting color as the rest of their surroundings. She looks back at the mirror, the long crack splintering down the middle. 

 

Everett stalks into the room, his eyes locked on the bottle in Alice’s hand. She grips it tighter, takes half a step back. 

 

“The mirror is broken, Alice. Give me the monster, and I won’t kill you.”

 

Kady snorts, positions herself in front of Alice, and levels an icy glare at Everett. “Sure you won’t, buddy.”

 

“Ah, and you must be the little hedge witch I’ve been hearing so much about. Pity you weren’t just a little bit better. Now, enough talking. Hand over the bottle before I decide to just kill us all.”

 

It appears that now is the time for improvisation. Zelda snatches the bottle out of Alice’s hand, shoves her into Kady, who stumbles several steps before regaining her balance. 

 

“I think it's time the three of you left,” Zelda says, not taking her eyes off of Everett as she tucks her free hand behind her back. 

 

“You know I can’t allow that, Zelda.”

 

“Please, Everett. No one else has to die.”

 

She remembers the book of Quentin Coldwater, patchy in places, always teetering on the edge of a premature ending, but bound together by a common thread of stubborn hope. She moves her fingers. 

 

Everett’s eyes widen. “What are you doing?”

 

“Just a little Minor Mending. It’s a very underrated discipline.”

 

Magic flows from her fingers, into the mirror, threading and sealing the glass back together like it’d never been broken at all. Everett shouts, lunging for the bottle but she’s already set it sailing through the mirror, lost to the Seam.

 

They only have moments. Zelda catches Penny’s eyes. “Go. Get them out of here.”

 

He doesn’t hesitate, just grabs Kady’s hand and pulls her towards the door, Alice stumbling after them, latched onto Kady. Zelda tries to get around Everett, assuming he’ll attempt to go after the bottle, but instead he changes directions, lunging for Alice and catching her wrist and trying to drag her back. 

 

No, Zelda thinks calmly. A memory floats to the surface of her mind, something her mother taught her once, a long, long time ago. She lifts her heel and smashes it down on the space between Everett’s foot and his ankle. He jerks, and shouts in pain. Kady yanks Alice free. 

 

Zelda turns in time to see the searing shower of sparks erupt from the mirror. It doesn’t take much to push Everett into their path. She looks back at the doorway, sees Kady pushing Alice in front of her, looking over her shoulder for Zelda, who meets her eyes with a sad smile. She nods. Kady lets Penny and Alice pull her around the corner.

 

Zelda closes her eyes and thinks of Harriet. 

 

“I’m so sorry, my love.”

 

She barely feels it as the shards tear through her body. 

 

* * *

 

“Hey. Been awhile. Welcome to the Underworld.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I spent a long time thinking about what I wanted from this chapter. Self-sacrifice is complicated, I think. As we're all very well aware (three months, guys. wtf.), there's a big difference between self-sacrifice and suicide. I hope I managed to convey that here. Zelda knew there was a chance she wouldn't make it back (hence the letter she leaves in Alice's bag), but she didn't set out to die. I felt her sacrifice made sense with in the confines of this story, and I hope y'all do to, but I still wanted to offer the warning and a bit of an explanation. 
> 
> That aside, there's one part left after this, probably two chapters, and then a weird little epilogue.


	9. break the world; one

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Quentin and Eliot talk, among other things. There is no volunteer tomato this time.

**part iii: break the world**

* * *

 

_one._

  


When Quentin was 8 years old, a kid named Darren McNally took his copy of _The Hobbit_ and tore it down the middle. Of course, Darren McNally was also 8 years old, and so only managed the tear the binding about a quarter of the way down, but that didn’t stop Quentin from being devastated in the way only a child new to intentional cruelty can be. Darren had laughed, and dropped Quentin’s book on the ground. 

 

He remembers how it felt, to kneel there in the dirt trying not to cry, and gather up his dirty, broken book, the tinny, distant sound of the other children’s laughs and shouts in his ears as he tried to reconcile this new truth: that people are sometimes cruel, and break the things you love in front of you. 

 

When Quentin was 25 years old, a man named Eliot Waugh took his heart and tore it down the middle. He didn’t do it to be cruel, but he didn’t do it to be kind either. And Quentin had another truth to reconcile, one that he already knew, but tried never to acknowledge: that people sometimes break the things they love, even when that thing is a person who doesn’t understand why. 

 

As it happens, though, Quentin happens to be rather good at fixing things these days. 

 

 

Eliot’s arms are around him, and as much as Quentin would like to take up permanent residence there, his father is buried less than two feet away and there are still two bottled god monsters waiting for them back at the apartment. So, he gulps in deep, shuddering breaths, tightens his fingers in the fabric of Eliot’s coat just one more time, and starts to pull back. 

 

Eliot, however, seems to have something different in mind. He lets Quentin unfold himself from his chest, but his hands only slide down to his elbows, keeping him close. 

 

Quentin blinks up at him, eyes still watery and gritty from all the crying. He probably looks ridiculous. His head feels clearer, though and that’s— well, it’s not nothing.

 

“Thank you,” Quentin says quietly. “For this. For— for coming back to me.”

 

Eliot’s hands jerk slightly. 

 

“Always.” His voice is rough, scrapped out from behind his teeth. 

 

Quentin pulls out of Eliot’s grip and looks down once more at the place where his dad is buried, covered now in clusters of bright flowers. His eyes sting a little, but the pain isn’t quite so raw anymore. It’s an ache he can carry.

“Bye, Dad,” he whispers, and turns away.

 

Eliot takes his hand, and Quentin allows himself to be towed from Ted Coldwater’s grave, down between the jumbled rows of headstones and haphazard flower arrangements that don’t hold a candle to the garden they bloomed for his dad. It’s a nice, simple feeling just holding Eliot’s hand, one that almost makes him feel normal, a warm, steady presence anchoring him to this moment like it’s too precious to miss. 

 

Eliot stops them just outside the gates of the cemetery. Quentin frowns up at him and his hair blows into his face. Before he can shove it away, Eliot’s hands are on his cheeks, long, elegant fingers pushing back his hair, lingering behind his ears. 

 

“Eliot, what are you—” He starts to ask, but Eliot shushes him, a tense, nervous look in his eyes.

 

“Just— give me a moment, Coldwater.”

 

Quentin hums his assent, only frowning a little. He can wait for Eliot to find his words. In the interim, Eliot rests his forehead against Quentin’s, brings them close enough together that he can feel Eliot’s breath ghosting across his lips like a whisper, or the promise of a whisper. 

 

“It’s— there’s something I’ve been meaning, _wanting_ to tell you.” Eliot says finally, quietly, and his voice is _shaking._

 

Quentin frowns more this time, puts one hand on Eliot’s waist, and the other on his elbow in a poor attempt at comfort. 

 

“Okay,” he says, trying to soothe. “It’s just me, El. You can tell me anything.”

 

For some reason, that makes Eliot laughs. 

 

“Oh Q, there has never been anything ‘just’ about you.”

 

Quentin smiles a little at the put upon expression on Eliot’s face, still so close to his own. “Sorry.”

 

Eliot’s fingers tighten in his hair. “Don’t be ridiculous. I love it. I lo—” And he stops, eyes blown wide and full of terror. 

 

The silence stretches, suspended between them like live wire. Quentin’s heart beats brutally in his chest, so hard and so fast that he’s surprised it hasn’t shattered his rib bones. He knows, somehow he _knows,_ that this moment matters in an elusive, precious way that can’t be named. He takes a deep breath and half a step back. Eliot holds onto him and that’s good; Quentin doesn’t want him to let go— he just wants to be able to see his eyes as he says this.

 

 “The monster— he never said my name like you do,” Quentin starts, keeping his voice soft and steady in direct defiance of his wild heart. “Like you— ” he pauses, looks up into Eliot’s wide, beautiful eyes, glossy with the emotion both of them have been too afraid to name. But this matter, so he keeps going. “Like you love me.”

 

A shudder runs through Eliot’s body, but he doesn’t look away, doesn’t look any less terrified either. “I do,” he whispers. “Q, I love you but— ”

 

Quentin’s mouth twitches, too sad to be a smile. “Oh, deja vu. I think we’ve had this part of the conversation before.”

 

“No, I promise— uh, we— we haven’t.” Eliot cups Quentin’s jaw, fingers caressing the soft skin behind his ear. “I love you,” he says it louder this time. “But I’m afraid. And I’m sorry that I don’t know how to stop being afraid. That’s not a puzzle I’ve ever been able to solve, I’m afraid.”

 

Quentin’s heart ricochets around inside him like a goddamn racquetball, but still, he manages to string the words together. 

 

“El, it’s not a— a puzzle, uh, it’s more like a process, you know? As long as you— you keep trying, you’ll be okay. And you don’t have to do it alone.” 

 

He puts his hand on Eliot’s waist, clutching at the thick wool of his coat, and smiles up at him. “Besides, we’ve already solved one impossible puzzle together, right?”

 

Eliot makes a small noise, somewhere between a sigh and a groan. “Thought you said it was more like a process?”

 

“Don’t be a dick.” Quentin laughs a little, feels his smile widen into something more genuine. 

 

Eliot shakes his head slightly, looking down at Quentin with that soft wonderment he’s never deserved. It replaces the terror, though. 

 

“Ask me again,” he says quietly, touching his thumb to the corner of Quentin’s mouth. “What you asked me then. Ask me again, Q.”

 

The rest of the world falls away, leaving them alone with this moment, this moment that matters more than fear. In this moment, they aren’t standing outside the cemetery where Quentin’s dad is buried, or standing between their world and whatever fucked up thing is trying to destroy it this week— they’re just _standing_ , the two of them together, and Eliot wants Quentin to ask him again.

 

So, he takes a deep breath and says, “El, why the fuck won’t you date me?”

 

Eliot sputters slightly and Quentin grins, feeling stupidly giddy and warm. 

 

“Wait, no, that wasn’t quite right. Let me try again.”

 

Eliot exhales a shaky laugh. 

 

“Ass.”

 

“Hey, I already did this once, remember?”

 

The joke falls flat when Eliot’s eyes darken, and Quentin recognizes that look of self-hatred as easily as he recognizes his own face. It’s a look he never wants to see anywhere near Eliot.

 

“I love you,” Quentin says simply. “What if we gave us a shot?”

 

Eliot smiles like a sunrise breaking the horizon, sending first light across silver waters. 

 

“I like the way you think, Coldwater. So, why the fuck not?”

 

And then, Eliot bends his head and kisses him. 

 

Sparks shoot down Quentin’s spine and he _ignites._ A small, embarrassing sound escapes his mouth, and he pushes up onto his toes, wraps his arms around Eliot’s stupidly broad shoulders, seeking more, seeking anything, _anything_ Eliot’s willing to give him. Eliot’s hand finds his favorite spot on the back of his neck, his thumb stroking the edge of Quentin’s jaw.

 

They’ve shared thousands of kisses across two timelines, far too many for Quentin to remember all of them, but in the beginning, he used to try. Because if he could just keep track, hold each one in his memory individually, then it would be real. If he ever needed to, he could convince them both that this was real. 

 

Of course, in Fillory life took hold and at some point, he stopped picturing the end when they were still in the middle. And they grew their family, and they grew into each other, and their lives became so much more than a series of kisses and sex and everything in between. Not that the kisses and sex and everything in between wasn’t still important, but it stopped being the center. Instead, _they_ were. 

 

It’s one of the reasons why it had hurt so much that day under the arch, after they’d remembered. 

 

_That isn’t me, and that certainly isn’t you. Not— not when we have a choice._

 

He hadn’t just lost his family, and— and the beauty of all life, but he lost his center, he lost _QuentinandEliot_ and that absence ate away at him. It ate so much and for so long that he just sort of got used to it, that gnawing ache leaving him hollow. Just one more thing stringing him towards Blackspire, and the events that transpired there. 

 

Quentin breaks the kiss, rocks back on his heels and slumps forward on Eliot’s chest.

 

“So, uh, that was— was that a, a yes?” Quentin says to Eliot’s collarbone, hating that he’s seeking the reassurance, but needing it anyways. 

 

Eliot holds him impossibly closer, one ridiculously long arm wrapped almost entirely around his waist, his other hand cupping the back of his head possessively. Quentin feels himself shaking, wonders if it’s nerves or an adrenaline drop or the simple, unavoidable truth that there are multitudes inside of him that can no longer be contained. And so he shakes, and Eliot holds him, and the world spins on around them. 

 

Eliot’s response is muffled from where he’s buried his face in Quentin’s hair, but he hears it anyway, a soft litany. 

 

“Yes, _god yes,_ Q. Yes. Yes. _Yes._ ”

 

 

 

When they get back to the apartment, Margo is pacing and arguing with her phone. Quentin follows Eliot into the kitchen and sees that its actually Alice she’s arguing with, in between practicing what appears to be an insanely intricate series of tuts. 

 

“Oh thank fuck you’re back,” Margo says without looking away from Alice, who’s in the middle of telling her to _crook_ her pinky finger, not _bend_ her pinky finger. “We’ve got a problem.”

 

“You mean another one?” Eliot says, running his hand across the back of Quentin’s shoulders as he moves around him to get a closer look at what Margo and Alice are doing. 

 

“Shut up, El. I’m concentrating.”

 

Eliot peers at her hands. “Is that some kind of ward—”

 

Quentin walks over as Eliot freezes, stumbles back a step and then Quentin sees the two spirit bottles on Margo’s other side. One bottle flares, revealing a web of tightly woven golden light, a segment of which flickers dangerously. Quentin’s heart, which had been doing a wonderful impression of happiness up until now, crawls up his throat until he can hear it beat in his ears. No, no he can’t _do_ this again. _Eliot_ can’t— 

 

Shit, Eliot. Eliot, whose hands are shaking where he’s braced them against the countertop, his face a sickly pale color, and anything Quentin’s feeling recedes into background noise because Eliot doesn’t need his panic. Eliot needs— 

 

“Hey. Hey, look at me.” Quentin grabs Eliot’s arm, pulls him around until he’s facing Quentin, not the bottled monsters. “El, you’re okay. It can’t hurt you anymore. Margo and I, we— we won’t let it.”

 

Eliot skims his hands up and down Quentin’s arms distractedly, likely unaware of his own unconscious attempt at offering comfort. “I know. I know that, Q. It’s just—”

 

“A process, not a puzzle?” Quentin goes up on his toes and kisses the corner of Eliot’s mouth.

 

Eliot hums, retaliates with a kiss of his own to Quentin’s brow. “Uh-huh, exactly. That.”

 

Margo makes a noise of triumph behind them. “Got you now, you little fuckers.” There’s a brief flash of light followed by the burn of magic in the air.

 

Quentin turns around, Eliot’s arm dropping around his shoulders, in time to catch Margo’s slightly feral grin. Her gaze narrows immediately, flickering between Quentin’s face and the location of Eliot’s arm. 

 

“Huh,” she says lightly, though the look she gives Eliot is anything but. “Yeah, we’ll be talking about this later. Unfortunately right now we have bigger fish.” She makes a face like she’s remembering something. “Shit. Josh.”

 

“Ah, and we will be talking about _that_ later as well, Bambi.” Eliot steps away from Quentin to reach for Margo, drawing her into his arms and dropping a kiss on her head. 

 

Quentin moves around both of them to pick up Margo’s abandoned phone.

 

“Hi, Alice.”

 

“Hey, Q,” she says quietly, smiling at him in a way that seems kind of sad, though she’s trying to hide it. “I’ve got good news. Julia should be waking up any minute. Once she does, we’re coming back to the apartment.”

 

He lets the relief wash over him, sweet and almost painful in its intensity. “Good. That’s good. I— thank you, Alice. I know I, uh, I haven’t been— “

 

Alice tilts her head, fiddles with the edge of her glasses, and offers him a smile that actually reaches her eyes. “I think you’re finally taking care of yourself, Q. And I’d like to be a part of that, someday, but it’s okay if that’s not what you need. I think— I think I need some things too, and I’m going to look for them, as soon as this is over.”

 

Something in him twinges, bittersweet and strange, something in the part of him that will always be hers. 

 

“I want that for you, Alice,” he says quietly. “And I’ll see you soon.”

 

 

 

Kady leads Julia through the door, arm wrapped around her waist while Penny hovers behind them, never taking his eyes off of Julia. Alice follows behind them, talking quietly with Zelda Schiff, who Quentin doesn’t really know and doesn’t really want to. They might as well not exist at all, though, because his eyes find Julia’s and everything, the years and the betrayal and the pain, falls away like dead leaves in winter. 

 

Because the truth is, they haven’t been _them_ for some time now. Julia and Q. Q and Julia. Somewhere along this fucked up road they’ve found themselves on, the one that started when their paths diverged at Brakebills that first day, they lost something precious, something neither of them realized was missing in the first place. Because Quentin loves Julia; she’s the other half of his soul, but that doesn’t change the fact that something fundamental was lost between them the day she trapped him in a hell of his own making, the kind she’d known he’d find himself in and put him there anyways. And he— he left her alone when she needed him, when she knew what magic was and that she had it, but didn’t understand why she’d lost it. He left her alone.

 

But Quentin meets Julia’s eyes, that soft brown more familiar to him than his own mind some days, and fuck if none of it really matters in the long run. He crosses to her in three easy strides because she meets him halfway, steps into his space like she never left it. 

 

“Hey. Hey, there you are,” she mumbles into his shoulder. 

 

He wraps his arms around her, and she fits like she always has. “Are you okay? Shit, Jules, I’m so sorry.”

 

She pulls back enough so he can see her face, the tears on her cheeks and the smile creasing her mouth. “It wasn’t your fault, and I’m good. Q, I’m more than good I’m—”

 

“Glowing,” Eliot supplies, coming up behind Quentin, his hand caresses the small of his back. “Like actually, physically glowing, Wicker. Are you pregnant?” He glares at Penny, and Quentin elbows him gently, biting back a laugh. 

 

“Oh my god, Eliot, no.” Julia looks at her hand, which is, in fact, glowing a little. “I think it’s just some kind of residual goddess thing. Not really sure, though.”

 

Margo walks over, hands on her hips. “Huh. Looking good, Wicker.”

 

Julia surprises them all by stepping out of Quentin’s embrace and putting her arms around Margo. 

 

“Thank you,” she says quietly, and after a long moment, Margo slowly, tentatively hugs her back. 

 

“Aww. They’re _bonding_.” 

 

Eliot presses up against Quentin’s back, practically purrs in his ear, sending those sparks ricocheting down his spine again and pooling at it’s base. The back of his neck burns. 

 

When the two women break apart, Margo’s smiling a little and Julia is somehow even _more_ radiant. They’re definitely going to have to look into that at some point. Right now, however, they have a planning montage to get into. 

 

Kady and Alice take point, bringing the rest of them up to speed.

 

“So what you’re saying is, these Old God assholes ducked their deus ex machina duties and now we’re stuck playing mirror inception?” Margo sounds both unimpressed and unsurprised. 

 

They continue to discuss the Seam, where it might be in the mirror realm and how to find it. Alice has thoughts on that, and whatever they are, he’s sure she’s right. Quentin shifts a little from his position on the floor, trying to get comfortable. He moves until his shoulder presses against Eliot’s leg, and he can see Julia out of the corner of his eye where she’s propped up on the other side of the couch. That’s better. 

 

At one point, he gets up and wanders into the kitchen to get a drink, sees a mug on the counter with a broken handle. He picks up the pieces and brings them back with him. 

 

“Jules, I never got the chance to tell you, but I, uh, I learned my discipline.” 

 

He twists his head so he can see her better and holds up the broken mug. Her eyes widen as he concentrates, knitting the shattered ceramic together until its flawless and whole again. 

 

“Repair of small objects,” Eliot says softly from his other side. “Minor Mending. Makes sense. You’ve always been good at fixing things, Q.”

 

Quentin’s breath hitches a little at that, and Julia tugs at his arm until she can reach his hand, links her fingers with his. 

 

“I— uh, thank you, El.” His voice trembles, and Eliot smooths his hair with the back of his hand. 

 

Quentin checks back into the conversation happening around them.

 

“So 23, Alice, and I are definitely going,” Kady is saying, and he realizes that they’re deciding who will go to the mirror realm and dispose of the monsters for good. 

 

For a moment, Quentin thinks about going, forcing himself to his feet and back into the plot. Finish this whole thing, like— like a hero is supposed to. 

 

The thing is though, he doesn’t feel much like a hero. At least, not of this particular story. Still, it’s what he’s supposed to do, right? 

 

But. 

 

But Julia’s hand grips his so tight it hurts. 

 

But Eliot’s hand finds the back of his neck and _holds_. 

 

But he doesn’t actually have to do any of this. No one is asking him to throw himself in front of this particular problem, no one is even expecting him too. In fact, if Julia and Eliot’s reactions are anything to go by, some of them are actively against it. 

 

Quentin takes a deep breath and...doesn’t do anything. No volunteer tomato this time. He feels a little shaky and strange, almost dizzy with relief at the prospect of not having to do something he hadn’t even realized he’d been dreading. 

 

He breathes out slowly, releases a fraction of the tension he’s been carrying and leans his head against Eliot’s knee.

 

In the end, Zelda talks her way onto Team Mirror Realm and once that’s settled, they don’t waste any more time. Alice secures the bottles, kisses Quentin’s cheek, shares a look with Eliot that he can’t read, and takes Penny’s hand. Kady touches Julia’s hair, says something quietly to her, gives the rest of them a confident half-smirk smile, and grabs Alice’s other hand. Zelda primly accepts Penny’s other hand. 

 

Then, they vanish and the only thing left to do is wait.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> pls take this chapter away from me. I've spent far too much time shouting and gesturing angrily in its direction. it was like pulling fucking teeth. 
> 
> anyways. one chapter and an epilogue thing left. much love and thanks to everyone who's been reading/commenting. y'all are the best and make my bad brain days a little less bad <3


	10. break the world; two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "You have learned to break the world that has tried to break you."

**part iii: break the world**

* * *

 

_two._

 

They have no idea how long it will take for Alice, Kady, Penny, and Zelda to get to the mirror realm, find the Seam, and throw the monsters in so while they wait, Margo orders enough Thai food to feed a small army. 

 

“Come on, Coldwater, be a gentleman and help me with all these fucking bags!” Margo shouts from the entryway, causing Quentin to roll his eyes, but get up anyways. 

 

“Jesus, Margo, why did you order the entire restaurant?” He staggers a little as she shoves two large paper bags into his arms, waving the delivery guy off with a shark smile.

 

“Don’t look at me like that. There’s a sweet and sour with your name on it, and you’re gonna eat it if I have to stand over you with a goddamn ax and glare until you do.”

 

“Bambi, be nice to our little Q,” Eliot says lightly from the couch, his long legs stretched out across the ottoman, Julia’s feet still in his lap. 

 

Margo spares him a glare over her shoulder. “He gets nice when his clothes stop hanging off of him like that. Seriously, a determined breeze could knock him over right now.”

 

“Wow, okay, I am _right here_ ,” Quentin says in protest, but he’s only slightly miffed and that's mostly just on principle. This is how Margo cares— loudly and a little bit rude. 

 

Julia, the traitor, starts laughing. He glares at her over the mountain of take out containers.

 

“Just for that, any and all wontons are mine, Wicker.”

 

She gasps. “How dare you. I am _injured_.”

 

“Team Injured calls dibs on wontons.” Eliot says, and high fives Julia.

 

Margo smirks, snatching up one wax paper bag and tossing a second to Quentin, who catches it and looks inside. Wontons. 

 

“Team Injured is going to have to get vertical if they want any food at all,” she says, popping a wonton in her mouth and chewing loudly. 

 

Quentin huffs a laugh, and digs into his own. Eliot and Julia claim mistreatment and abuse, citing the Geneva Convention and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, among others, until Quentin gives in and gets both of them a plate. He even includes what’s left of the wontons. 

 

“Thank you, darling,” Eliot murmurs, catching Quentin’s hand and brushing a kiss across his knuckles like it’s second nature, like he hasn’t just sent Quentin’s heart rocketing up his throat and swooping down into his stomach with giddy adrenaline. 

 

Julia makes a soft, happy sound while Quentin stammers something unintelligible before fleeing back to the kitchen. 

 

Margo takes one look at his face, and snorts inelegantly. 

 

“I’m not going to protect you from your feelings, Coldwater, so don’t even ask.”

 

“I don’t— need protection from my feelings.”

 

“Sure. That’s why you’re hiding in the kitchen bothering me, instead of out there sitting on Eliot’s lap.”

 

Quentin’s face is on _fire_ , and Margo looks far too pleased with herself. 

 

“Jesus, I wouldn’t— Julia is _right there_ , and she’s already— why would you—”

 

“Fucking christ, Q, take a breath.” She cuts him off, still smirking slightly. “Anyways, I actually wanted to talk about something other than Eliot’s dick with you.”

 

“I never _wanted_ to— Okay.” Quentin gives up, and drags both hands down his burning face. 

 

This is what it’s going to be like, he realizes. It’s going to be like this _all the time._ By the time he’s able to look at her again, her expression has shifted into something serious, almost tentative. 

 

“What is it?” he asks, frowning a little. 

 

“You said earlier that you missed your dad’s funeral because of that fucked up memory magic we got dosed with,” Margo says because mincing words isn’t really her thing. “And that’s bullshit so I thought— we could do one. A memorial or something. And I know only you and Wicker knew him, but El and I, we’d be there. But if it would be weird or you don’t want to, just say s—”

 

The rest of her sentence is lost as Quentin half-lunges at her, and wraps her up in his arms, almost lifting her off her feet. She makes a sound somewhere between a squawk and a gasp that at any other time he absolutely would give her shit about, but right now, he's got more important things to do, like keep his overflowing heart from spilling all over her satin blouse.

 

“Thank you,” he whispers into the side of her neck, hiding in her hair because his eyes are burning _again_ and he really needs to get this crying thing under control. “Thank you. And yes, _yes_ , can we do that? When this is over, I’d really like to do that.”

 

She squeezes him once, then pulls back so she can reach his face, wipes away the stray tears that escape down his cheeks with a brusqueness betrayed by the soft look in her eyes. “Alright, alright. Don’t get all weepy on me now.”

 

Quentin lets her push him off, but the sweet ache in his chest just grows as he looks down at her, bold and beautiful, a motherfucking king even sans crown and country, and for some reason, he gets to be someone she’s chosen to love. It leaves him a little awestruck. 

 

“Hey,” he says, starting to back up and out of the kitchen, in the direction of the living room. “I really love you, Margo.”

 

She throws half a wonton at his head. “I know, dipshit.” 

  


Eventually, Eliot and Margo wander off into another room leaving Quentin alone with Julia for the first time since the ritual and the expulsion of the monster’s sister from her body. She shifts on the couch, pulling her legs up underneath her and pulling at Quentin until he gives in, resting his head in her lap like she wants. 

 

“Just lie down, dummy,” she chides gently, carding her fingers through his hair. “You look exhausted.”

 

“Mmm,” Quentin mumbles half-heartedly. “At least I didn’t get stabbed.”

 

“Eh, it wasn’t so bad. I got wontons out of it, after all,” Julia says, and he can hear the smile in her voice. 

 

He thinks about the terror he’d refused to feel when he’d come back to the news that the monster had taken her, that _once again_ he hadn’t been there to protect her. He thinks about the ritual, the things he saw in his memory, what Kady saw in hers, the kinship that sprang up between them as a result of being loved and being broken by the same person. If they hadn’t been able to save her, if he’d lost her… Fuck. The thought of a world without his best friend in it doesn’t even bear imagining. 

 

“Missed you, Jules,” he whispers, and his eyes leak tears, soaking into the soft fabric of Julia’s leggings. Because that's just what he does now; he cries on his friends. 

 

“Hey, it’s okay, Q. I’m okay.” 

 

Her fingers scratch at his scalp, a soothing, familiar rhythm and he sighs wetly, folds his knees up towards his chest and wraps one arm around them, tucks the other around himself in an empty hug.  Since today seems to be the day for earth-shattering truths, he decides to voice the one that scares him the most, that's been lurking inside him the longest, clinging to the shadows of self-doubt and depression clouding his mind.

 

“What if—" he swallows, breathes out harshly through his nose. "What if I’m not. Okay, I mean. What if I’m not okay, Jules?” 

 

The admittance shudders through him, an earthquake shaking the foundations of every wall he’s built over the last year, every brick made up of ‘ _I’m fine, I’m fine, I have to be fine_ ’. Julia's hand stops moving, and she shifts above him. Then, he feels the warm brush of her lips on his forehead. 

 

“Then we deal with it,” she says firmly, without hesitation. “We deal with it, Q, however you need. Whatever you need. I think I— I let you feel like you were alone. I was selfish and distracted when you needed me not to be, and I am so, so sorry for that. But it’s okay now. We’re both going to be okay now.”

 

Quentin squeezes his eyes shut, reaches blindly for her hand. Her fingers grip his tightly, and something in him settles back into place, different than it was before, with rougher edges, but a stronger foundation.

 

“Sleep for a bit. I’m right here.” 

 

And with Julia’s voice a soft murmur in his ear, and her hand once again stroking his hair, Quentin does. 

 

 

Different voices filter through to Quentin’s waking brain, voices as familiar as Julia’s and just as loved.

 

“You’re a whole ass idiot, Eliot, you know that right?”

 

“As always, Bambi, your unwavering love and support means everything.”

 

“Oh, I support your ass, I’ll support your ass with my Gucci-clad foot if you fuck around with his heart after this.”

 

“Never, Margo. I wouldn’t, I— he’s it, for me. Somehow, he’s it and he’s perfect and I get to have him twice. I can’t— I _won’t_ do anything to jeopardize that. Also, sidenote, shouldn’t you technically be threatening _him_ not to hurt _me?_ ”

 

“Eh, I’ll get to it when baby boy doesn’t look like he’s going to pass out every other minute.”

 

“Please never, ever call him that again. For me.”

 

“I’m thinking I probably will. For you.”

 

Eliot makes an affronted noise just as Quentin forces his eyes to open. He blinks wearily until Eliot, then Margo, come into focus. It takes another second for him to notice that a pillow has replaced Julia’s lap beneath his head. 

 

“Margo can threaten me now if you want, El,” he says through a yawn, pushing himself up onto one elbow. 

 

Eliot stares at him, makes an unintelligible noise, and gestures helplessly at Quentin’s head. He frowns, and raises his hand to his hair, which is somehow both plastered to his head and sticking up in ways that defy gravity. Eliot makes a noise that could almost be categorized as a whimper while Margo looks _delighted._ She perches on the edge of the couch, closest to his head, reaching out to pet back his hair. 

 

“Oh, baby, I’ll get to it, I promise. When you’re not looking all pretty and vulnerable; it wouldn’t be fair to Eliot.” She’s practically crooning, which Quentin finds increasingly distressing. 

 

“Oh, um, okay. I guess.”

 

Margo keeps petting his hair. 

 

“Bambi,” Eliot says tightly. “Go away.”

 

She snorts, more or less directly in Quentin’s face, but stands up anyways, smacking a kiss to the corner of his mouth as she does. She saunters up to Eliot, plays idly with the buttons on his vest for a moment.

 

“Don’t be an idiot,” she says, pats his chest, and leaves the room. 

 

Quentin sits up, tucks himself against the arm of the couch. 

 

“Are you okay?” he asks Eliot, a little tentatively. 

 

Eliot heaves a sigh, drags his hand through his hair, but then he smiles at Quentin and it’s a real one, one that fills him to the brim with warmth and soft, gold light. 

 

“Oh, I’m fine,” he says airily. “Margo just likes to be a _bitch_.” He raises his voice pointedly, and Margo shouts an unflattering response. 

 

“Okay,” Quentin says, bewildered. 

 

Eliot drops down on the couch next to him, wraps his arm around Quentin’s shoulders with a familiarity that makes him ache. Because it _is_ familiar, like shrugging into a favorite sweater that’s been worn soft with age, but it’s also new— fragile— and Quentin’s still getting used to the idea that he exists to do more than break, or be broken by, the things around him. But it’s Eliot, and Quentin’s body sinks into his side like he was made to be there. 

 

“How are _you_ feeling?” It’s Eliot’s turn to ask, and Quentin finds himself shrugging. 

 

“Fine, I think. Better than before, at least. A little guilty that I didn’t go with to the mirror realm—”

 

He breaks off as Eliot’s arm tightens around him almost to the point of pain. 

 

“Don't,” Eliot says, words oddly clipped. “Don't feel guilty about that. Because then _I’d_ have to have gone, which means _Margo_ would’ve too, and at that point, it would have just been overcrowded.”

 

Quentin twists under Eliot’s arm, tilting his head back until he can see his face. Eliot’s face is pale, his jaw clenched in a hard line. 

 

“Okay, seriously, what’s wrong?” Quentin says, more firmly. 

 

He reaches up and puts his hand on Eliot’s cheek, stubble pricking at his fingertips, presses until Eliot turns to look at him. His eyes meet Quentin’s, then flicker away quickly. Eliot swallows, and Quentin feels the muscles in his jaw working beneath his hand. 

 

“I just. Think we should take a break from the sacrifices plays, is all.”

 

Oh. _Oh._ They’re not just talking about the mirror realm anymore; they’ve circled back to Blackspire and Quentin’s rash, tired promise to stay behind and the gun in Eliot’s hand and every fucked up thing that’s happened between then and now. 

 

“Okay,” Quentin says, and he’s a little surprised at his own answer, but not as much as Eliot apparently is. 

 

Eliot opens his mouth, stares at Quentin, then closes it again. Quentin shrugs.

 

“We deserve a break. And uh, Professor Lipson gave me something, the card of a— a therapist who’s also a Magician. I think. I think I might call her.”

 

“Yeah?” Eliot asks, voice stained with hope. “That’s— that’s good, Q. I want you to be okay. I want _us_ to be okay.”

 

“We are. We will be, El. I promise.” And the thing is, he _believes_ it, and that's a feeling he could really get used to.

 

Eliot smiles, his mouth curving in the perfect combination of devious and sweet. He leans down until his lips brush the top of Quentin’s cheekbone. “I’m holding you to that, Coldwater.”

 

Quentin turns his head and kisses Eliot’s mouth, quick and soft. Because that’s something he gets to do now. Holy shit. With unerring precision, Eliot’s hand cups the side of his neck, fingers slipping under his hair. He deepens the kiss until Quentin is breathless and pliant in his arms. Letting out a shaky sigh, presses his face into Eliot’s shoulder, smiles a little as those long fingers start stroking through his hair. 

 

“I missed you,” Quentin says quietly, mostly to Eliot’s collarbone.

 

He’s said it before, and he’s going to say it again. He’s going to say it until they’re both sick of hearing it, and then he’s going to say it some more. At every goodbye, after every hello because he never, ever wants to live in a world where Eliot isn’t around to miss, even when it’s only for a moment or two. 

 

He feels Eliot take a deep breath. “I missed you, too.”

  


Sometime later, apartment door swings open and Kady, Penny, and Alice stumble inside. Quentin stands up quickly, unease tightening in the pit of his stomach. They look shell-shocked, and a little unsteady. Zelda is nowhere to be seen. Alice takes a step forward, but her legs give out beneath her and she starts to fall. Quentin isn’t fast enough to catch her, but Kady is.

 

“What the hell happened?” Margo pushes past Quentin and helps Kady guide Alice to the couch.

 

Penny collapses into the nearest chair, and buries his head in his hands. Julia slips out of the kitchen and over to Kady’s other side, her brow creased in concern.

 

“Where’s Zelda?” Quentin asks, but the words are hollow, in expectation of the worst. He already knows the answer. 

 

“She didn’t make it.” Kady’s voice is brittle, and her hand shakes on Alice’s knee. “Everett— somehow he knew we would— “

 

“She told him.” Alice says, face shockingly pale and her bright blue eyes blown wide with a cocktail of emotions he can’t even begin to identify. “She must have. It’s the only way he could have known where we’d gone.”

 

Penny raises his head. “She didn’t even blink when he showed up.”

 

“Two birds, one stone,” Alice whispers. “She knew he wanted the monsters, and she used that to lure him into the mirror realm. And then she—”

 

“I don’t think she wanted to die,” Kady says, her eyes fixed on nothing. “She just— didn’t see another way after he shattered the mirror containing the Seam.”

 

Quentin hears Eliot’s deliberate steps behind him, and blindly reaches back for his hand. 

 

“The monsters, are they—” Eliot keeps his voice level, but Quentin can feel the faint trembling in his fingers.

 

Kady blinks rapidly. “Oh, they’re definitely gone. Both of them. But Zelda, she had to fix the mirror first before we could throw the second one in.”

 

“But you can’t do magic in the mirror realm,” Quentin says numbly as a strange, terrible feeling skitters along the edges of his mind, teasing and taunting. 

 

He knows what spell he would have used, small and simple, just a little minor mending. His fingers half form the tuts before Eliot’s grip on his hand becomes painful, drawing him out of his reverie, and the dark spiral of his thoughts. 

 

“You can do magic,” Alice says, her eyes glazed and staring at something only she can see. “It just—”

 

“Fucking _explodes._ ” Kady finishes, looking a little ill. Julia touches her shoulder, murmurs something too quiet for Quentin to hear. 

 

“Right,” Margo says briskly, squares her shoulders in such a way that Quentin can practically see the light glinting from where her crown should be. “That happened, and it fucking sucks, and there’s going to be a dick-ton of shit to deal with, but right now? Right fucking now? There’s an obnoxious amount of Thai food in the kitchen, and I refuse to deal with leftovers so that’s on all of you. New mission is eat all that shit I didn't actually pay for. Now, I'm going to take one hell of a nap.”

 

She flicks her fingers, and a mountain of decadent pillows appear in the middle of the room. Without another word, she sets about making herself a little nest shoved up against one end of the couch. Eliot huffs a small, fond laugh, moves his own fingers, and a parade of white take out containers float over from the kitchen. 

 

It takes a couple of minutes, but everyone eventually settles with their food. Quentin finds himself in Margo’s nest of pillows, pressed against Eliot’s side, one of Margo’s hands, her arm draped around the back of Eliot's neck, playing with the ends of Quentin’s hair while the other links with Eliot’s and rests on his chest. Julia is on the couch above him, legs tangled with Kady’s. Alice is on Kady’s other side, burrowed in her own mound of pillows. Penny’s pulled his chair up close to the couch, legs stretched out towards Julia, who rubs distracted circles into his ankle with her thumb. 

 

It’s over, he realizes even though he knows that it isn’t, not really. Magic may be free again (without Everett threatening their every move, Kady’s hedges finally managed to break enough of the Library’s pipes), but with their leader gone, there’ll be a power vacuum within the Order that'll have to be dealt. Hedges and Magicians came together in ways that can’t be undone, and their worlds are going to change because of it. Powerful magicians will try to snap up as much power as they can, including the usual suspects like Irene McAllister and Dean Fogg, but there’s bound to be new players as well, enemies and allies they haven’t even met yet. 

 

It’s overwhelming and a little bit terrifying and it makes Quentin feel guilty about taking this moment to just _be_ , to exist in the same space as the people he loves, their ranks closed as they lick their wounds, tend to each other in the ways only they know how to. As guilt veers dangerously close to becoming panic, that sick, anxious feeling that if he doesn’t _do something now_ the world is going to end and it’s going to be his fault, Eliot shifts, pulls Quentin half on top of him. Eliot smirks at the blush Quentin feels rising in his cheeks. No one else seems to notice though, except for Margo who rolls her eyes and laughs at him as she continues to gently play with his hair. 

 

And all at once, he remembers that he isn’t alone, that he doesn’t have to be the hero of the story, that one of his best friends holds divinity inside her and the other two are the strongest people he knows, that he’s surrounded by friends who love him in different ways, who keep holding on even when, _especially_ when, he can’t anymore. 

 

It’s a wonderful feeling, realizing that the world can wait for a moment. 

 

“Stop thinking,” Eliot says softly, kissing Quentin’s nose, then his brow, letting the soft warmth of his mouth linger. “We have time, Q. We have so much time.”

 

And they do. They really, really do.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OKAY SO. Here lies the official last chapter of this story, though there is an epilogue to come. I struggled with this chapter, but ultimately I think it did what I want I wanted it to do. I chose to use part of That Quote as both the title of part iii and this chapter's summary because it's what we deserved to get from the show (but didn't), and where I wanted Quentin to end up in this story. 
> 
> That Quote, of course, being: "But you, my friends, you found another way: a way to use the pain. To burn it as fuel, for light and warmth. You have learned to break the world that has tried to break you." (Lev Grossman)
> 
> As always, thank you for reading/commenting/being you and I'll be hitting y'all back with that epilogue soon.


	11. epilogue.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A better bonfire (Bonnie Tyler is there)

**_epilogue._ **

  


Ted Coldwater’s memorial bonfire takes place a few weeks later, organized by Margo and Julia, and attended by Quentin, Eliot, Kady, Penny, and Alice. Even Dean Fogg and Professor Lipson stop by to pay their respects. Quentin’s not entirely sure how they even knew about it, but the gesture means something nonetheless. Though he suspects there may have been some coercion involved from Margo’s end; she likes brandishing those axes a little too much. 

 

The evening passes in something of a blur. He knows that he says a few words, one or two things about his dad that make his throat hurt to think about, but once he gets through that, Julia takes over, regaling their friends with story after story, mostly about the trouble she and Quentin used to get into and how Ted always had to pull them out of it. 

 

“You were the one always getting in trouble, Jules.” Quentin feels obligated to remind her. “I was guilty by association.”

 

“Lies and slander.” Julia protests, but her grin and the mischievous sparkle in her eyes suggests otherwise. 

 

Quentin rolls his eyes and she sticks her tongue out at him before careening into another story, this one about the time Ted shared his weed with her while Quentin was asleep. His dad had been firmly ensconced in the ‘If you’re going to do it, I’d rather you do it at home’ camp, but Quentin always suspected that was mainly because he wanted in on some of the action. 

 

There’s a rustle of movement to his left, and then Alice sits down on the log next to him. He looks over at her, sees pursed lips and restless fingers and knows better than to ask her what’s on her mind. She’ll tell him when she’s ready. They’ve built a careful peace, the two of them, and Quentin’s pathetically grateful for it, for the fact that after everything they’ve done to each other they’re finally, actually _friends_. 

 

“Q, I—” she starts after several seconds not quite tense silence. “I want your advice on something.”

 

He twists around on the log until he’s facing her. She’s twisting a piece of paper between her fingers, and looking at the ground.

 

“Okay,” he says, and waits. 

 

Alice takes a deep breath. 

 

“Zelda left me a note.”

 

Quentin blinks. “Oh, um, okay. What— what did it say?”

 

Alice looks pained, and a little uncertain. “Mostly things she wanted Harriet to know, but also...things, about the Library and the Order that I— that _someone_ could use to change it. To make it better. I think that’s what she wants, _wanted_ , me to do— to fix it, however I can.”

 

Firelight reflects off her glasses, and her eyes look like they’re shooting sparks. Alice, whatever her flaws, holds a storm under her skin that she’s been fighting her whole life. It must be horrible, to be so sure of what you are that even the thought of what you could be is terrifying to contemplate. He still remembers her confession, the quiet, resigned certainty in her voice. 

 

_“I have no idea what I’m even capable of.”_

 

It seems like she’s finally going to find out. He kind of can’t wait to see what she learns. She’s always been bigger than him, than Brakebills; she and Julia, whatever they are, they’re doing it on a cosmic scale. 

 

“Yeah?” He offers her a smile, tentative, and she returns it, equally so. “That sounds like something you’d be really good at.”

 

Her smile grows as the tension drains out of her body. She relaxes next to him.

 

“Kady’s going to help. She thinks that if we can get hedges in on the ground floor, we’ve got a shot at a genuine partnership. Q, we could fundamentally change how we view magic, how we relate to it, regulate it, how we _teach_ it. Kady says—”

 

Quentin can’t help himself. “Kady, huh?” he says with a sideways grin, bumping her with his elbow. 

 

Alice, to his delight and slight surprise, flushes a delicate pink. She lifts her chin, angles her nose away from him.

 

“I’m not talking about this with you.”

 

Quentin laughs out loud, then claps a hand over his mouth, startling at the sound. He wonders when his own happiness will stop feeling ridiculous to him. A moment later, strong hands cup his shoulders, pull him back against a familiar, solid warmth. 

 

“Hey, El.” Quentin tips his head back until he can see Eliot, mouth creased in a smile, looking down at him. 

 

“Q.” 

 

Eliot holds his name in his mouth like something holy, like communion.  

 

And Quentin, he wants to _live_ in this moment, in Eliot’s arms, Alice next to him, talking like friends, Julia standing on a log, steadying herself on Penny’s shoulder and laughing into Kady’s face, who looks across the fire to wink at Alice, Margo holding court over them all. This is how it’s supposed to be. 

 

Then, Eliot’s pulling him to his feet, all stronger upper body strength and stubbornness. Quentin mostly goes with it, though he does grouse a bit because he was warm and in the middle of a conversation. But it’s a truth universal by now that where Eliot goes, Quentin follows. So, he does, stumbling a little as Eliot pulls him into the light cast by the bonfire. 

 

“What are we doing?” Quentin grumbles half-heartedly.

 

Eliot wraps an arm around his waist and yanks him in close, hard enough that Quentin falls against him, hands braced on his chest. 

 

“We’re dancing, Q,” Eliot says, like it's the most obvious thing in the world which it _isn’t_.

 

Before Quentin can reply, Margo cuts in with a triumphant crow. 

 

“Oh, I’ve got one for real this time,” she says to Kady, who rolls her eyes but smirks at Quentin in a way that makes him suddenly very afraid. 

 

The two of them move in unison, hands twisting in deft movements that end in a sharp snap of fingers and then the music starts. Immediately, Eliot gasps, eyes wide as he stares at Margo with nothing short of adoration in his eyes. 

 

“Oh, Bambi, you’re my goddamn hero.”

 

She smirks. “I know.”

 

Quentin groans, and Eliot turns his attention back to him, a slow, sultry smile curving his mouth in a way that normally he’d be _very_ into, but he knows what’s coming. 

 

And sure enough, Kady starts crooning right on cue, her voice like smooth whiskey and smoke-filled jazz halls, sauntering up to Alice and pulling her to her feet as she sings about how every now and then she gets a little bit lonely. Julia, never one to be left out, adds her own sweet, raspy voice into the mix, strutting back and forth across the log like it’s her stage, unable to decide if she should serenade Margo or Penny so she attempts to do both. 

 

Eliot’s hand sneaks up the back of Quentin’s shirt, dips his head until his mouth brushes against Quentin’s ear, making him shiver. 

 

It’s not quite singing, but it’s not quite speaking either. Eliot’s voice is low and warm, wraps around Quentin like a checkered, multi-colored quilt stitched with memories. 

 

_“And I need you now tonight, I need you more than ever. And if you only hold me tight. We'll be holding on forever.”_

 

Quentin hides his smile against Eliot’s chest, feels the kiss to the top of his head, the steady warmth of Eliot’s body wrapped around his, familiar and grounding and _safe_. It’s ridiculous how long he’s gone without that, that feeling of safe and shelter, of a soft place to land. Eliot sways softly, moving Quentin with him in a way that could maybe be construed as dancing in the loosest, sappiest definition of the term. He should feel ridiculous, and maybe he does, a little, but mostly he just feels happy and in love and it’s enough.

 

“Come on, Bright Eyes,” Margo cuts in, snatching Quentin’s wrist and yanking him away from Eliot. “Dance with me, and let Bonnie Tyler over here have his big moment.”

 

Quentin follows her lead because it’s Margo, glancing back over his shoulder in time to catch Eliot’s wink before he turns to Kady, his voice rising to meet hers and then the two of them are off, this tiny part of the world their stage. Quentin watches Eliot spin Alice into his arms then back into Kady’s until they’re all flushed and breathless and still singing. Something tight and wonderful and overwhelming squeezes his rib cage, and he clenches his jaw against the sting growing behind his eyes. 

 

“Hey, look at me, Q,” Margo says, voice firm, hand on his cheek,guiding his attention to her. He gives it, looking down at her with a watery smile. 

 

“I’m good, Margo,” he assures her and her crooked, skeptical eyebrow. “ It’s just a little— overwhelming. But it’s good. I’m good.”

 

He probably sounds like an idiot, but she’s nodding at him, looking more or less satisfied. 

 

“Good,” she says. “Just don’t forget about our two-way emotional support street; it’s ride or die, baby.”

 

He snorts a little at that, raises his own skeptical eyebrow. “So that means I get to ask about Josh and Fen now, right?”

 

She narrows her eyes at him, both of them, fairy eye back and safely ensconced where it belongs. 

 

“Tread lightly, Coldwater. Because we can go back to how _good_ you are, how much Eliot _loves_ how—”

 

“Okay!” Quentin says loudly, knows he’s turned a vibrant shade of red. “No Josh or Fen, got it.”

 

Margo smirks at him, far too pleased with herself. Quentin sighs, defeated, and lets her pull him further towards the bonfire, into the flickering light, ringed like a halo. 

 

“Thank you for this,” he says softly, after a moment. “For— for helping me say goodbye to him.”

 

Instead of answering right away, she steps closer and rests her head on his shoulder. His arms tighten around her, soft dark hair under his nose, smelling of citrus and smoke. There are still things they need to talk about, stuff she saw that he refused to do anything about, things he knows that she can’t quite admit to yet, but this isn’t about that. This is about her _seeing_ him when no one else did, not even Julia, and doing something about it. 

 

People forget sometimes that Margo is Quentin’s friend too, but he never has. 

 

“You know how I feel about this sappy shit,” she starts, voice muffled in his shoulder. “But I learned something on my supremely fucked up desert retreat, and fuck if we don’t just need to _feel_ our shit once in awhile.” 

 

She lifts her head, and the look in her eyes is fierce, focused, and a little wild, reminding him that they really should talk about what happened in that desert at some point, too.

 

“Q, you have the softest fucking heart of anyone I’ve ever met; honestly, it’s a little nauseating, but that isn’t the point.” She looks like she kind of wants to make that the point, but she doesn’t, forges on instead. “The point is, you keep giving it away like you do, and eventually there won’t be any left for yourself. And you need it, you need something to come back to when everything else gets broken. Believe me, I know.”

 

And he knows that she does; he can see it written in every line of her body, all that hard, glossy armor she wears like a second skin, in that faraway look she gets in her eye sometimes, in the brands scarred into her wrists that he still insists on treating for her because she won’t do it herself. 

 

“I’m doing better, Margo. I really am,” he says because she needs to hear it, and also because it’s true. Sometimes he can’t believe it’s actually true, but he’s eating better and sleeping more, and he doesn’t flinch when Eliot comes up behind him a little too quietly.

 

“I know you are. Both of you are.” She sighs, sounding frustrated, then upset that she’s frustrated. 

 

“Maybe— maybe it’s time,” Quentin says hesitantly, and does his best not to shrink back from her glare. “Jesus, don’t kill me, I just think that if you wanted to, and I _know_ that you do— don’t look at me like that, Margo— Eliot and I, we’d be okay.”

 

For the first time, she looks away from him, stares furiously at a point over his shoulder he can’t see. 

 

“What if.” She stops abruptly, gives herself another moment. “What if _I’m_ not okay? I walked away, Q. I gave up Fillory and Fen and fucking everything that we worked so goddamn hard to build. What if I— can’t do it again.”

 

With anyone else, Quentin would probably take a different approach, softer, cajoling a little, some commiserative, but ultimately supportive. This, however, is Margo and he does none of those things. 

 

“Please.” He raises his eyebrows, gives her the most unimpressed look he can muster. “You can do whatever you want. If it doesn’t work, come home. But it _will_ because it’s you.” He shrugs a little. “You get shit done.”

 

She stares at him for a long moment, thoughtful and unreadable, but then she breaks into a smile, wide and genuine and utterly captivating. 

 

“Huh. Never would have pegged you for a motivational speaker, Coldwater.” Her voice is light, teasing, her eyes fond but still guarded— apparently, this is another conversation they’ll need to revisit. 

 

“Hm, well, thanks for coming to my Ted Talk.” He matches her tone, quirks his eyebrows in that way he knows makes her laugh.

 

It does. “Oh my god, you are such a nerd,” she says with a groan. 

 

Before Quentin can reply in kind, Eliot slips between them, drops his arm around Quentin’s shoulders and a kiss on Margo’s head.

 

“What are we fighting about, children?” he asks, a little breathless, flushed and happy, and all Quentin can do is stare up at him hungrily, blindsided by the fact that he gets to have this, that he’s still around to have this, that Eliot is too. 

 

“Not fighting,” Quentin says, a little dazed, and Margo snorts inelegantly. 

 

Eliot tucks him further into his side, his arm slipping down around his waist, fingers moving in dangerous and distracting directions. Margo rolls her eyes, but her expression is fond, if a little exasperated. Around them, their friends continue to sing, Julia and Kady already arguing about which song to do next, and the bonfire crackles and spits sparks into the night sky like shooting stars, and Quentin is _warm_ and _held_ and _happy_. 

 

“We were just discussing how your boy is a high-strung super nerd,” Margo says, smirking in Eliot’s direction.

 

“Ah, good thing we love those then.”

 

Before Quentin can sputter and blush properly, Eliot dips his head and kisses his mouth, long and slow and sweet. His hands grasp at Eliot’s hips, pulling him closer. A broad palm cups his cheek and Quentin pushes up on his toes, yanks ineffectually at Eliot’s tall, stupid shoulders. 

 

“Should I get him a step ladder?” He hears Julia ask. 

 

“Just take Eliot out at the ankles, and they should be fine.” Kady suggests.

 

Quentin stops kissing Eliot long enough to flip both of them off. 

 

“Ugh, just leave them to it,” Margo sighs. “Forever’s gonna start tonight, and all that.”

  


 

Eventually, everyone breaks off into two’s and three’s, wandering back to the Cottage and elsewhere as the fire burns down into smoldering embers. Eventually, it’s just the two of them left, and Eliot spreads a blanket out next to fire, draws Quentin down with him until they’re both lying on their backs, staring up at the stars. It’s strange, considering all that they’ve seen, the worlds they’ve visited, all the gods and their monsters, that Quentin can still look up at the night sky and feel small. It used to scare him, that feeling of overwhelming insignificance within the grander scheme of things, but now he thinks it might be a privilege to live a life worthy of being forgotten, as long as it’s also filled with love.

 

“Do you ever miss it?” 

 

The question bursts out of him, uninvited and without explanation, but Eliot doesn’t need any. Quentin feels him tense, hears his breath stutter out in soft, rapid bursts. In the last month, they’ve talked more about their other life than they did for an entire year, and yet, it still feels raw, an open wound that they’re only now getting around to poking at. 

 

“Yes,” Eliot says simply. “ And no. I miss it like— like a really good dream, the kind that ends too soon and leaves you fumbling in the dark, grasping for an ending that will never be entirely satisfying, but you’re never going to get one because the dream is over, and it’s time to wake up.”

 

Quentin exhales shakily. He thinks about Arielle and Teddy, about having Eliot and losing him, about his dad, about Julia and Alice and Kady, about Margo. About not having Eliot and still losing him. About getting him back. He thinks about the mosaic, that other life they lived there, and how it somehow still reflects into this one, like light on water, almost impossible to see. 

 

That life is over, but the one they have now isn’t. 

 

“El, I want a better ending this time,” Quentin whispers into the space between them, turning his head until he finds Eliot’s eyes in the darkness, the dying firelight casting long shadows across them both. 

 

The world’s full of unhappy endings, all missed chances and almosts and could-have-beens, but Quentin wants a better story; he always has. The difference now is that he’s finally learned how to ask for one. 

 

Eliot shifts closer to him, tangling their legs together and leaning his head against Quentin’s, the corner of his mouth pulled up into a smile.

 

“Okay,” he says softly. “Let’s go make one.”

 

 

**Fin.**

 

* * *

 

> _“I can verify_
> 
> _that when the sun sets in winter it is_
> 
> _incomparably beautiful and the memory of it_
> 
> _lasts a long time. I think this means_
> 
>  
> 
> _there was no night._
> 
> _The night was in my head.”_
> 
>  
> 
> _-_ Louise Glück, from "Landscape"

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This epilogue kicked my entire ass so I hope it was worth the wait. That aside, I fucking loved writing this story. It was different and hard in ways that I wasn't expecting and definitely wasn't prepared, but I truly think I'm a stronger writer now than I was when I started. That could just be my exhaustion and sentimentality talking though. 
> 
> As always, thank you for reading and commenting and being you. 
> 
> The quote at the end is from my girl Louise Gluck's poem "Landscape"

**Author's Note:**

> apparently, my only effective coping mechanism is writing more fic so here we go again, I guess. There should be roughly 4-5 more chapters of this but really, who knows anymore. 
> 
> title comes from The Nationals' new album because seriously fuck those guys.
> 
> hit me up on [tumblr](https://annelesbonny.tumblr.com/)


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